Sci-Fly Horror ...

The Curse Of The Fly

(1965)

Descendants of the Delambre family, from the original The Fly (1958) movie, are still cursed by the stigma surrounding their heritage. Science is however in their blood and the son of the original scientist is still working on the principal that teleportation can become a reality. The true reality is that success comes at an horrific cost !.

Henri Delambre (Brian Donlevy) keeps his hopes and dreams alive with the assistance of his own two sons. The elder son Martin (George Baker) is as dedicated as his father, but younger brother Albert (Michael Graham) is anxious for the experimentations to cease, particularly when those being experimented upon are human, and include his own father !.

The movie grabs your attention immediately with an intensity and great visual flair. The window to a stately building explodes outwardly, shards of glass hurl into screen in slow motion, displaying a quality akin to viewing a 3D film. An attractive young woman makes her way out of the window frame, she is without clothing save for her underwear. Hurriedly she runs away from the building, escaping into the surrounding wooded grounds, clearly trying to evade whomever it may be that she believes will soon come after her. In her possession is a large key, which she uses to open the main iron gates to the entrance of the property. Her escape is complete when picked up by a passing car on the main road, adjacent to the property. The benefactor to the young woman turns out to be Martin Delambre. A man with his own secrets to keep he does not overly press for an explanation of this near naked lady, but does ascertain her name as Patricia Stanley (Carole Gray). Her kept secret is that the estate that she has just ran away from is in fact a private mental institution, of which she is a patient !.

In an incredible whirlwind seven days Martin Delambre courts and marries his new found sweetheart, both accepting each other with no questions asked of their past. Together they move in to the Delambre home in Canada, which also just so happens to be Martin Delambre’s scientific laboratory. Set up in the lab is a teleportation device, with another just like it in his fathers home in London, England. Even more mad scientist like are the outhouse boarding’s for the still living results of failed human experimentations !. Married Chinese house servants Wan (Yvette Rees) and Tai (Burt Kwouk) keep the Delambre business a guarded secret, one that new arrival Mrs. Patricia Delambre threatens !.

A congenital gene remains predominantly dormant within Martin Delambre, thanks to a serum he injects when the condition does attack his system. Left untreated and he irreversibly ages at an alarming rate. In a bid to help his father complete the life long work passed down through the generations, he himself has experimented on human beings. Two members of earlier staff, and his own wife !. All are still living a deformed existence, locked up in the containment holdings at the back of the house.

The Delambre families problems are multiplied when the local police inspector calls at their Canadian residence, along with the head of the mental faculty, seeking answers to questions pertaining to Patricia Stanley. Learning of her marriage to Martin Delambre brings about more questions than answers, but without the right legal court order the law is not enforceable. Reluctantly Inspector Ronet and Madame Fournier, from the mental institution, leave the Delambre residence, but the inspector is intent upon pursuing the matter further with utmost urgency !.

Events spiral quickly out of control as Martin Delambre works to protect his father, and with his help cover their tracks by removing all evidence of their experimentation. Whilst they scientifically absolve themselves of their own morality, and cull the still living subjects with an perversely abhorrent outcome to two of the test subjects, Martin Delambre’s first wife Judith is set free by Wan. Having already played upon the instability of the new Mrs. Delambre’s mental health the devoted house servant acts on her own accord to aid her employers. The result proves to be counter destructive.

With the house of Delambre in turmoil, Inspector Ronet has accrued background information regarding the horrors surrounding the case of, The Fly !, from an elderly former inspector who has spent his life dedicated to the case history of the Delambre family. A prevalent link to the previous two films acts here as a neat explanation to previous events, and enables Inspector Ronet to act upon his own suspicions and storm back to the Delambre residence to get the truth.
Playing out to a climatic conclusion in the style of the old school Universal Studios horror house movies like, The House Of Frankenstein (1944), and The House Of Dracula (1945), not to mention the Roger Corman entries such as, The Fall Of The House Of Usher (1960), this house of Delambre figuratively comes crashing down. All of the outcomes and demises are suitably startling, alarming and shocking !.

When the curtain comes down, just prior to the end credits playing out, in large bold lettering comes the statement, ‘Is this the end !?’. Certainly for the original run of movies The Curse Of The Fly was the third and final entry, but the statement proved to be prophetic in that the franchise was re-imaged in 1986, followed by its own sequel in 1989. Perhaps otherwise, the producers back in 1965 were awaiting the public buzz, and cinema receipts, before closing the window on The Fly !?.

The Curse Of The Fly is released in a near pristine, original Black And White, letterboxed, wide screen 16:9 enhanced version to DVD as part of an excellent value, and one of the extremely well presented editions, in a UK PAL DVD Box Set. Completing the excellent package are the original, The Fly (1958), Return Of The Fly (1959) and both of the remakes of, The Fly (1986) and The Fly II (1989).

The Curse Of The Fly Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XqTeNWLNI

Movie Details IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059076/