Tearjerkers in The Fly (1986).
WARNING: Spoilers are unmarked.
- Seth's You're Just Jealous rant to Veronica, just before he tosses her out, is tearjerking as well as terrifying because of Dramatic Irony — the audience knows she's absolutely right that he's (effectively) sick, but he's too Drunk with Power and bitter over her allowing Tawny to leave the loft to see that. As Seth shows off his strength by punching the support beam, Veronica desperately begs him to stop, and after she's shoved out the door she breaks down in tears as she leaves the warehouse. She knows the sweet, gentle man she came to love — and still loves — is not himself in the worst possible way, but she's helpless to do anything about it...and so is the audience.
- Seth saying "Help me! Please, help me!" to Veronica when he sees her after his month-long isolation. This is a line lifted from the oft-parodied spider scene in the original film, and Jeff Goldblum sells it for all the heart-wrenching drama that it has.
- Arguably, Seth's jokes and overall lighthearted attitude when he's transforming into Brundlefly. The jokes may be actually be funny, at first. Then you start to realize that Seth's using humor as an (extremely poor) attempt to mask and/or trivialize what is, essentially, his death. It's as if he's in denial about what's truly happening.
- Especially if you consider his transformation a metaphor for terminal disease, which was David Cronenberg's intent; Geena Davis discusses this in the retrospective documentary Fear of the Flesh.
- It isn't solely denial, though that is important. Upon realizing that he's becoming a new lifeform, the curious scientist in him wants to explore what he's becoming, if only for science. In fact, there's a part of him that is embracing the change and the new skills that come with it. "Most people would give anything to become something else", as he points out. But he's the only one able to regard his transformation with wonder, the only one who can see something beautiful in it, before his mind starts to go.
- "I'm just going to have to disintegrate. In a novel way, no doubt. And then I'll die and then it'll be over."
- The above inevitably comes to pass in the finale as Seth literally crumbles after Veronica accidentally rips off his decayed jaw, as fingers and feet fall off, joints loudly and painfully snap into reverse positions, his skin peels off in wet bloody chunks, and his skull loudly cracks open to reveal its final insectoid shape. It is as heartbreaking as it is horrifying to see the bright, sweet, and shy man who was fond of playing Beethoven on his piano in the beginning of the story fall so spectacularly from grace.
- The "Insect Politics" monologue, which is often cited as endemic of the film's total brilliance and power.Seth: You have to leave now, and never come back here. Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first... insect politician. Y'see, I'd like to, but... I'm afraid, uh...
Veronica: I don't know what you're trying to say...
Seth: I'm saying... [finally reveals himself to Veronica, who fearfully steps backward] I'm saying I-I'm an insect... who dreamt he was a man... and loved it. But now the dream is over... and the insect is awake.
Veronica: [looking close to tears] No, no... No, Seth...
Seth: I'm saying... I'll hurt you if you stay.- By this point, Seth can't even cry properly. As Veronica leaves, he starts sobbing in a voice more akin to the buzz of a fly than human crying.
- Also, he is in near-constant pain at this point because his Brundlefly form is getting ready to emerge. It clearly gets worse over the next few scenes too.
- One comment on a YouTube upload of the clip has even given insight into an alternate view of the scene:Alegre Franz: This is not only Seth warning her that he was giving in to the insect instincts. It is the fly itself, aware of what IT had become. Wanting it more, but knowing it was slowly going back to that primordial brain. The fly gained some semblance of sentience, when they fused together, and the awareness was heavenly to it. It knew and understood what it meant to be alive, and love someone. So it wasn't just Seth losing his mind, it was both awarenesses warning their only love to go away.
- After Brundle crashes through the window of the abortion clinic and carries Veronica off to stop her from aborting the child that may have been conceived before his Tragic Mistake teleportation, he delivers this soul-crushingly sad plea:Seth: Why did you want to kill Brundle? The baby... might be all that's left of the real me.... Please don't kill me...
- It says a lot about how moving this film is that, after all the Body Horror and Nausea Fuel, people have been known to cry at the ending. Seth's just desperately trying to cling to his fleeting humanity and gets a few screws loose in his head while he's at it. He tries to absorb Veronica and their unborn baby into himself as his final transformation kicks in. After the botched final teleportation leaves him a horrific abomination of flesh, insect, and technology, he limps over to Veronica in agony and, with the last of his humanity, puts her shotgun barrel to his head and silently begs her to put him out of his misery. Veronica, who is safe but thoroughly broken, can only oblige him. So tragic is the ending that none of the four filmed epilogues worked in test screenings, as the audiences were so devastated that they couldn't accept any sort of coda. The film just ends after Seth dies and we are left to mourn him.
