Part three of The Fly saga, The Curse of the Fly is miles away in tone and subject matter from the beloved 1958 original and its low-rent sequel the following year, but highly effective in its sober, British quality. Imagine the stiff-upper-lip style of any given Avengers episode (I’m talking Emma Peel, not Iron Man) done scientific and straight-faced, and you have this rather cool, compelling sci-fi gem, as underrated as it is underseen.
As the black-and-white film begins, we’re treated to slow-motion shots of a comely brunette (Carole Gray, Devils of Darkness) escaping from a loony bin while wearing only her bra and panties. On the run, she comes across Henri Delambre (Brian Donlevy, 1947’s Kiss of Death), one of those dapper young men of the family whose ancestors pioneered experimentation in human teleportation — a project he himself is involved heavily in perfecting.
I say “perfecting,” because all the kinks of disintegration and reintegration of the human body’s molecules aren’t all worked out. And damned if the Delambres don’t have a mess of caged mutants out back to prove it! Included in the menagerie is Henri’s ex-wife, who — although now scaly-faced — still plays a mean piano!
These unethical laboratory shenanigans lead to a mutant revolt and a perverse, genuinely disturbing twist I won’t reveal. I found Curse to be an incredibly unique take on the Fly concept as created in George Langelaan’s 1957 short story; uncommon for the B-programmer era, director Don Sharp (Psychomania) found a way to expand on the source material’s mythology without just doing a simple rehash, although the studio — and especially tightwad producer Robert L. Lippert (The Last Man on Earth) — gladly would have settled for that. It would have been interesting to see where the franchise went from here, but 20th Century Fox gave it up until David Cronenberg’s brilliant reinvention in 1986. —Rod Lott