[Mother of Fears] Be Very Afraid of Motherhood in The Fly (1986)

Welcome to Mother of Fears – a monthly column that will explore the various roles that mothers play within the horror genre. Mothers are a staple feature in horror movies, and yet, their stories, motivations, representations, and relationships with their children are so varied and complex that we never feel like we’re watching the same story twice. Every month I will take a look at a different mother from the world of horror, explore their story, and look at how they fit into the broader representation of women in horror.

Content Warning: This article discusses abortion.

Spoiler Warning: This editorial contains spoilers for The Fly (1986). 

For journalist Veronica Quaife her life changes direction one night in a massive way while attending a Bartok Science Industries party. She’s there to cover the event for Particle magazine, and has a few interviews scheduled with scientists who all think they’ve discovered something which will change the world. 

We drop into the party as Veronica is chatting with scientist Seth Brundle, who is keen to show her his latest invention, but wants to invite her back to his apartment to see it. She’s obviously wary, as she’s probably used to men hitting on her rather than treating her as a professional, but she decides the risk may be worth it if she can get the scoop on Seth’s newest invention.

And as it turns out, Seth has invented something pretty incredible. His telepods can transport objects from one pod to another, and he proves this when Veronica removes her stocking and lets him use it as part of his demonstration. Now she sees that Seth is a big deal and she’s excited. She whips out a tape recorder and starts recording while asking question after question. But when Seth realises what she’s doing, he says she can’t report on this. He didn’t realise she was a reporter. Turns out luring women back to his apartment to show off his latest invention is just an elaborate pick-up technique. 

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“I thought this was personal. You can’t write about this”, Seth begs but Veronica is a career-minded woman, and she leaves with what she knows is a huge scoop. However, her boss and ex-boyfriend Stathis is quick to write off the whole thing as an elaborate hoax. Even though Veronica saw the telepods working with her own eyes, Stathis doesn’t believe her professional opinion, and tells her to leave the story. 

However, Seth begins to recognise how smart Veronica is, and he tracks her down at work to discuss his work a little further. While he doesn’t want her to write about the experiment right now before it’s ready, he is keen for her to follow his work from now until its final result and write about it when the time is right. It may even be enough material for a book and Veronica is intrigued. She knows that Stathis doesn’t take her seriously, but she believes that Seth is onto something huge, and she wants to be part of the exclusive scoop when it happens. 

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So, she starts spending a lot of time with Seth while he figures out how to perfect the tele pods so he can send living material through them, eventually hoping to travel through the pods himself at some point. 

Stathis, however, isn’t content with controlling her at work and wants to control her personal life as well. He still has a key to her apartment, and she comes home one night to find him showering. While he doesn’t think the story is anything worth writing about, he’s also a bit put off that Seth came to Veronica’s workplace and that she left to have lunch with him. He doesn’t like the idea of her getting too close to anyone else, and so he makes sure to let her know that he’s still there and still watching her. 

As Seth’s experiments progress he stalls when he accidentally turns one of his baboons outside in. As they chat about it, Veronica comments on how cute Seth is, and then makes the first move. The two end up sleeping together and she spends the night at his apartment. When her cuteness aggression takes over the next morning and she starts biting Seth’s arm, she makes a comment about how it’s the flesh that’s making her act this way, and this throwaway comment gives Seth a breakthrough in his experiment. 

Because of this, Veronica becomes a sort of muse to Seth, and he’s excited to involve her in as much of the experiment as possible. Eventually, the second baboon is sent through the tele pod and it survives. Seth says he will run some tests, and if the baboon proves to be healthy he will know it’s safe to go through himself.

Veronica is also excited by Seth's success but it’s clear she’s also looking forward to a little time away from the work so they can just relax as a normal couple. She suggests that they go on holiday together, which Seth seems taken aback by, but very excited by the prospect. However, when Veronica discovers a mock magazine cover which Stathis has sent her leaking Seth’s research, she leaves abruptly to sort the issue out rather than stay and eat Chinese food with him. 

She’s obviously furious at Stathis, who has already approached her outside Seth’s apartment after he followed her there. She doesn’t want him to ruin her big break, but she also knows that something like this is likely to put her relationship with Seth at risk. She eventually gets him to agree to leave her alone while she follows up on this story, but Stathis still tries to get her to agree to stress-relieving sex on occasion, which she obviously rejects.

However, while she’s out Seth puts two and two together and realises that Stathis is Veronica’s ex-boyfriend. He’s upset, he drinks while ranting to the surviving baboon, and then decides that the only thing that will make him feel better at this moment is to go through the telepods himself and prove that his experiment is a success and that is a better man than Stathis will ever be. 

When Veronica returns she discovers that Seth’s dramatic ass completed the experiment without her, even though he filmed it for her to watch later. The two have sex to celebrate, but she notices some strange hair poking out of Seth’s back. Seth either doesn’t pay much attention to his own body, or he’s not interested in looking too hard at things that may be happening to him as a result of the teleportation. It’s up to Veronica to worry about him and try to convince him that something may have gone wrong. 

Seth buys her a necklace while they’re out in town, but as they sit down to coffee and his thoughts drift back to science, it’s clear to Veronica that this is not the man she first met at that party. Not only is he piling his coffee full of sugar, but he’s also loud and agitated.

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An added bonus of his transformation seems to be his increased sexual stamina, though their sessions last so long that Veronica has to tap out so she can have some recharge time. This is when she notices that the hairs on his back are getting worse, and snips some off. However, Seth only has one thought on his mind and that’s involving Veronica in his experiment as much as possible. He wants her to go through the pods as well so her body can change in the same way as his and they can be the ultimate science power couple. 

But Veronica is sceptical. Going through is something she’s probably never wanted to do in the first place, but after watching Seth turn a baboon outside in and then seeing the way he’s changing himself, she knows that this is something she doesn’t want to be a part of. 

Seth is angry and says he can find someone else if she doesn’t want to be part of it, and so she leaves. However, she returns later to talk to Seth and finds him in a post-cotial state with another woman who he is currently trying to force through the telepods. After saving the other woman, she tells Seth why she’s really there. She took the hairs from his back to be studied by a lab, and they discovered they are insect hairs. Even after he hurt and scared her, Veronica still has Seth’s best interests at heart. She needs him to know that something went really wrong with the experiment in the hopes that he’ll be able to get help and fix it. Now that he’s cheated on her their relationship is obviously over, but she still wants to ensure that Seth doesn’t do any permanent damage to himself in the quest of knowledge. 

However, Seth tells her that he “doesn’t need her anymore”. She is no longer his muse. She has broken the unspoken bond between them because she is questioning his professional abilities now instead of supporting him or providing assistance. Seth isn’t interested in having her around because she is bringing him down now instead of putting him up on a pedestal, and that doesn’t sit right with his ego. 

Once again it is Veronica who progresses his work to the next stage as Seth finds out he fused with a fly when he travelled between the pods thanks to the hair analysis she had carried out. But rather than reaching out to her for help, he throws himself even further into his work and cuts her out of his life pretty much completely. It takes four weeks before he works up the nerve to call her and tell her that he’s gotten much worse. At this point he thinks the fusion between the fly is displaying as some sort of cancer and it will most likely kill him. He’s weak and scared and he needs her to be there for him, but of course, he doesn’t prepare her for what she’s walking into and so she’s terrified. 

He knows she’s so involved at this stage that she’ll come to his aid, but he’s not being very respectful of her feelings. Much like Stathis he is trying to control her, and because of his condition, he’s a lot more successful at it than her ex-boyfriend. He pushed her away when it suited him, and now he needs her help and so he draws her back in. 

She reaches out to Stathis for help because he’s the only other person with knowledge of the case, but he warns her to stay away from Seth. Stathis is scared for her safety, but Veronica wants to do everything she can for Seth and his extraordinary situation. By this point, however, Seth’s infection has reached such a point that he’s confident he’s turning into something else - something better. 

It’s at this point that Veronica discovers she’s pregnant. Obviously she doesn’t know if this happened before or after Seth went through the telepods, and this leads her to worry about what sort of baby she could be carrying. She dreams about giving birth to a huge maggot creature, and she realises that she’s never going to be able to go through with the pregnancy while she wonders what sort of baby is growing inside her. 

She tries to speak to Seth about it, but he’s past talking to at this point. There’s so little man left when she visits his apartment, and the part of him that is there is only interested in talking about his transformation. Just like he said to her when they first met, he’s so used to working alone and he just wants someone to talk about his work to. Perhaps this whole relationship was built on this premise and he never really cared for her as deeply as she did for him. 

However, a small sliver of humanity leaks through as he tells her to leave because he’s worried about hurting her. “I’ll hurt you if you stay.” So she leaves without telling him about the baby, and demands that Stathis take her for an abortion right that instant so she can rid herself of any reminder of what is happening to Seth. Though Seth overhears her and decides to follow her to the hospital to talk her out of the abortion. 

He says that the baby may be the only human part of him left and he can’t stand the thought of her having an abortion. After all the things he’s put her through, he has no qualms about asking her to do one more impossible thing and carry on with this pregnancy. Not only does she have no idea what she’s carrying or if she would even survive the pregnancy or birth, but the whole thing would only be a constant reminder of Seth and what happened to him. But Seth has proven himself more than once to be incredibly selfish, and he thinks nothing of this request. 

Veronica refuses and so Seth decides to make her and the baby a part of his latest experiment. Instead of looking at ways to fix himself, Seth has been delving deeper into the world of fusion. He has set up a three pod machine which will fuse himself with Veronica and the baby into the ultimate family unit. “Help me be human”, he begs, again asking the impossible of Veronica. There is nothing she can do to fix him at this point. He’s only interested in making her like him, just as he was when he first wanted her to go through the pods. Only it’s much worse now, because he knows exactly what will happen to her and the baby. 

In the end the experiment is sabotaged, and Seth ends up fusing with the metal pod rather than Veronica. The creature is barely able to survive and finally asks Veronica to kill him, which is another horrible ask after all he’s put her through. Seth thinks only of himself right until the end, and Veronica is left to deal with the consequences. Hopefully with Seth out of the picture she can decide what to do with her body by herself, without the input of him or Stathis trying to control her.

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