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Special-effects guru Chris Walas is intimately familiar with the monsters packed in the closet of your mind.
He's the man who transformed furry little fuzzballs into grotesque monsters (and tossed them in a blender) in Gremlins, did uncredited work on Jabba the Hutt's barge, helped melt the face off a Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark and brought to life the creepy-crawlies in the cult alien flick Enemy Mine.
But Walas' finest work is undoubtedly on display in David Cronenberg's ghastly, horrifying 1986 remake of The Fly, which the Oscar-winning creature-effects legend is screening at the Hollywood this Saturday.
The '80s were a magical time for practical monster features. Films like The Thing, Aliens, Predator and An American Werewolf in London captured audiences' imagination, and FX artists like Rick Baker rose to celebrity status. Hell, it was an era when practical effects were so well respected someone even made an action movie, F/X, based on a badass makeup artist. And a sequel, natch.
So what's so damned special about The Fly that makes it stick out in that crowded field and stand as perhaps the finest effects work produced in '80s horror? Well, obviously, the monster. Over the course of the film, Jeff Goldblum's Seth Brundle slowly transforms into the legendary Brundlefly in a multistage transformation that plays out like a Kafkaesque rapid-aging process. He spews enzymes. He breaks out in boils covered in goop. Eventually, he becomes more monster than man.
Thanks both to Walas' ingenious effects and Goldblum's layered performance, the creature's humanity is visible regardless of the thick layers of prosthetics. Sure, he's blurred and soaked in bile, but at no point do we forget that there's a human underneath all that nastiness—a human we care about. He even has a loving partner, played by the great Geena Davis, who can see the man being enveloped by increased sensory abilities and enslaved by a libidinous urge to propagate his heretofore-unknown species. Brundle's story is a body-horror reflection of a superhero origin, and we never lose sight of the humanity lurking in him, even as the character himself seems to.
Walas went on to direct the unfairly maligned sequel, which starred Eric Stoltz and looked great but didn't pack the same emotional punch (save for a scene with a dog that's haunted me since I saw it as a kid). But how could it? The Fly is possibly the very best body-horror film ever made. It works because of the very human tragedy you can see peeking out, intentionally, from the grandiose macabre mosaic that Walas and Cronenberg created.
Brundlefly is us. He's human. He's tactile. And he's sympathetic. That's fucking terrifying.
SEE IT: Chris Walas presents The Fly at the Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Saturday, April 16.
Also Showing:
A legend in the curious realm of schlocky efficiency, William "One Shot" Beaudine was famous for not wasting film with pesky multiple takes. Which is to say, films like 1944's Bela Legosi-starring Voodoo Man might help explain that weird rubber baby in Clint Eastwood's American Sniper. Joy Cinema. 9:15 pm Wednesday, April 13.
OMSI's Reel Science series features Pan's Labyrinth at an event that begins with a talk about lucid dreaming and concludes with you having pants-shittingly realistic nightmares because you learned about lucid dreaming before watching Pan's Labyrinth. OMSI. 6:30 pm Wednesday, April 13.
We thought Church of Film's Folk Supernatural series was a month-long affair, but we were thankfully wrong, as the series now continues with South Korea's A Thousand-Year Fox, the tale of a woman with some literally foxy attributes tempting a priest. North Star Ballroom. 8 pm Wednesday, April 13.
Fashion in Film presents Reality Bites, a portrait of '90s grunge culture best remembered for its soundtrack, which, like the film itself, was nowhere near as good as Singles. That's the power of The Knack. Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Thursday, April 14.
Holy shit! Short Circuit is 30 this year! Everybody needs to stop what they're doing and lobby the government of Astoria, OR to finally fulfill their duty of erecting a statue of Johnny 5. Dollars to donuts, he's aged better than Corey Feldman, and we talk about Goonies all the goddamned time. Mission Theater. Opens Thursday, April 14.
Holy shit! Top Gun is turning 30 too! No need to lobby anybody. That movie has already resulted in enough things being erected. Mission Theater. Opens Thursday, April 14.
Alexandre Aja's High Tension is a gruesome, nasty French slasher with a final 15 minutes that some consider mind-blowing and others (like, 98% of the population) consider so fucking ridiculous that it negates the preceding greatness… and that's before you consider the undertones. Which is to say, Queer Horror host Carla Rossi should have a field day with this one. Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Thursday, April 14.
William Friedkin's criminally underseen Sorcerer—a high-stakes actioner following a group of low-lifes driving a druck full of nitroglycerine across the jungles of South America—gets a much-deserved revival. Laurelhurst Theater. Friday-Thursday, April 15-21.
The Coen Brothers' heralded No Country for Old Men is the kind of movie that morphs upon each viewing. Sometimes it's a white-knuckle thriller. Sometimes an oil-black comedy. Others, a soul-searing horror film, void of music and focused on encroaching evil. The only thing it isn't is boring. Academy Theater. Friday-Thursday, April 15-21.
Lucia Puenzo's XXY takes a hard look at the life of an intersexual teenager struggling with her identity in the face of strained relationships. 5th Avenue Theater. 7 & 9:30 pm Friday-Saturday, 3 pm Sunday, April 15-17.
Opera Theater Oregon—a group seeking to bring opera back into pop culture—hosts a benefit screening of the director's cut of Milos Forman's Amadeus. Clinton Street Theater. 1:30 pm Saturday, April 16.
The NW Film Center's retrospective of Japanese cult director Seijun Suzuki's eclectic spread of violent, stylized work continues with jazz noir Passport to Darkness (Saturday), 1980s surrealistically metaphysical Ziguernerweisen (Sunday), and the belated finale of the director's Taisho Trilogy, Yumeji (Tuesday). NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. For full listings, see NWFilm.org.
Is it fair to call Teen Wolf the best '80s basketball movie without sounding like an asshole? Because, um, Teen Wolf is the best '80s basketball movie. Sorry, Hoosiers. Should have taken Stiles off the bench. Hollywood Theatre. 1:30 pm Saturday-Sunday, April 16-17.
Underseen stop-motion adventure Pirates! Band of Misfits gets the Portland Geek Council treatment. Clinton Street Theater. 2 pm Sunday, April 17.
Archivist Dennis Nyback presents a reel of old-school '30s and '40s shorts with "Jazz, Sex and War Cartoons," a look at the golden age in all its glory. And probably some of its sexism and rasism. But hey, time capsules can get dirty. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Monday, April 18.
Repressed Cinema gets grimy with Modus Operandi, a cheap 8mm spysploitation flm starring Danny Trejo, who is basically required to appear in all cheeky throwbacks with "sploitation" in the title. Hollywood Cinema. 7:30 pm Tuesday, April 19.
Willamette Week