Superhero Media: The Fly

Oh god the hubris! What has science wrought? Was Jeff Goldblum cast in Jurassic Park on the strength of this performance? Only The Fly can provide the answers. As I continually mention, I have a major in Flim and Television Studies (as well as Literature Major), which is a great way to understand cinema, but a very bad way to enjoy it. You see, Cronenberg is a visionary of body horror, if you've never seen any of the films of Shinya Tsukamoto, the guy ol' Dave basically stole his ideas from. So yes, I can enjoy The Fly on it's own merits, but the whole time, I'm thinking that I'd rather be watching Tetsuo: The Iron Man. So, a mad scientist accidentally crosses his DNA with a housefly in a teleportation experiment and we get the world's newest hero, this thing: 

Well, no. There aren't any colourful costumes or villains to battle or sexy upside-down kiss in the rain with a fit redhead in a soaking crop-top, but aside from all that, Seth Brundle could basically be one of Peter Parker's classmates. So what do you do when a failed experiment turns you into a human/fly hybrid? Attempt to do the same to your girlfriend and unborn child, of course! Somehow a big injection of fly DNA and superpowers makes you evil. I'm not going to dispute that as Curt Conners proved that the same is true of lizard DNA, but makes you think, doesn't it? I wonder what other creatures have intrinsically evil DNA? And do things like kittens have good DNA? Can I become a better person by injecting kittens into myself? These are questions that need answering. To the lab!

  
I've never been a fan of horror, really. I try out the odd film an J and K-Horror are starting to do it for me a bit, but overall the genre leaves me a bit cold. The entire time watching The Fly, up until the bloodbath at the end, I felt like I was seeing the origin of a superhero or villain; the failed experiment, crossed DNA and awakening super powers. Seth Brundle is not overly dissimilar to Curt Conners or Kirk Langstrom, and having a costumed hero swing through the window, beat down Brundlefly and deliver a pithy one-liner would not be terribly out of place.