13 Days of First-Time Frights: The Fly

13 Days of First-Time Frights is a series of reviews for October 2019 where Douglas Laman, in the spirit of Halloween, watches and writes about thirteen horror movies he's never seen before. These reviews will be posted each Tuesday and Thursday as well as the last three Wednesdays of October 2019.

Entry #4: The Fly

Scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) is working on something quite impressive. It's not something he's willing to share with just anyone, but he does end up bringing reporter Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis) back to his workspace to check out what he's managed to create. Turns out, Brundle has created a revolutionary teleportation device in the form of two telepods. It's still in need of tweaks so that it can properly transport human tissue but it's already transporting clothes from one place to the next without issue, surely humans can't be far behind. Veronica Quaife begins to chronicle Brundle's trial and error exercises in getting this machine to work properly and in the process the two of them being to fall in love.

Beetlejuice Was Early Tim Burton That Went Full-On Strange To Mostly Endearing Results

We all know the tricks of the trade of Tim Burton movies at this point. Until recently, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter were guaranteed to show up in some capacity and the majority of his 21st-century output consists of remakes of already existing movies. And of course, the visual aesthetic that lands somewhere between gothic and quirky that's seen in nearly all of his work is perhaps his most defining trait as a filmmaker. But back in 1988, Burton had only directed one movie (as well as a slew of short films), so I'm sure seeing his morbid sensibilities very much front and center in the film Beetlejuice was very much a shock to many. Burton was coming out of the gate swinging and not putting aside any of his idiosyncrasies, that was for sure.