"Gremlins" make Chris Walas turns man into mutant on the David Cronenberg monster FX movie

Transfomation scenes were really something to gawk at five or six years ago. The Howling, Cat People, An American Werewolf in London, The Beast Within etc., all featured the latest special makeup FX technology turning hapless humans into loathsome beasties. So, at first glance, David Cronenberg´s man-into-insect movie didn´t seem like anything new. Chris Walas strove to make The Fly´s FX different.

"There was a great concern," admit Walas, an easygoing Californian noted for his acclaimed special makeup FX on Gremlins and for ILM. "The problem was that we wanted to carry Jeff Goldblum´s character as far as possible with him as the actor, and then get to something that was definitely inhuman. The only way to bridge that gap was with a transformation. We didn´t want to do a transformation for transformation´s sake. There have been so many transformations, so much stretching rubber and popping scenes in other movies. People are immune to them.

We took The Fly´s transformations as being akin to an insect shedding its cocoon or an animal getting rid of a thick layer of skin," Walas continues. "We tried to avoid similarities to Cat People where the skin just bursts. Our character does this tearing, shaking loose movement that we incorporated with the action as much as possible."

Before joining The Fly in Toronto, Walas and a crew of 30 dove into designing more than a dozen different special makeup FX, rigs, and puppets at his California shop, Chris Walas Inc., Work began in September 1985 - a scant three months prior to the start of principal photography. Walas usually hopes for six months of pre-production, but such luxuries rarely exist in the hectic FX business. Besides Seth Brundle´s seven-stage transformation, Walas´ team supplied the giant maggot baby-puppet for Veronica´s dream scenes, the inside-out monkey, and some rousing gory moments like Stathis Borans´ explicit mutilation.

"We´ve done an awful lot of work on The Fly," Walas moans humorously. Though we started the designs in September, we didn´t have the lead actor or any designs locked in until the beginning of October, when we finally got Jeff. We had to basically do all our makeup pieces, suits and everything in less than a month. We would be sizing up designs and tailoring on Jeff - who was needed for filming - while still trying to incorporate all the design aspects needed for the final stage; not much time to pull a lot of stuff together."

Since the time was so short for Walas and company, things turned into somewhat of a free-for-all when it came to The Fly designs. The FX crew went "crazy" with sketches and models. Jonathan Horton originally sketched the Space Bug - the sixth stage. Walas then reworked it to get more of an insect-like look. Most of the makeup stuff was supervisor Stephan DuPuis´ final design, with input from other crew members. Jon (Star Wars) Berg did much of the fullfigure Space Bug design and eventual mechanical FX.

Several Walas, Inc. designs and puppets, however, never made it into The Fly´s final cut. Alert readers will have noticed by now that the ferocious monkey-cat photos that appeared in Fango #55 & 56 were conspiciously absent from the Augst release. Also much of the fourth stage makeup wound up on the cutting room floor as well since Brundle is in that final stage when he wrestles with the mutant-mammal combo. Cronenberg also scrapped a butterfly-baby epilogue at the movie´s end that represented Brundle´s offspring.

"They thought the monkey-cat sequence worked against the Brundle character," Walas explains. "It made it seem that he was cruel to animals, and David thought it was too intense overall. I liked the fourth stage makeup and the monkey-cat a great deal, but you learn to expect that something you really want to see in a picture won´t make it in there."

Brundle might not be allowed to abuse animals, but fellow human beings aren´t aslucky. For the scene in which Brundle arm wrestles with a barroom brute and a bone splits through the local yokel´s wrist, Walas´ colleagues devised a rigid fiberglass support bone-piece with a foam prosthetic overlay. The trick worked when the actor simply twisted his hand. For the gory dissolution of Boran´s hand and foot after being spat on by the Fly, the crew tried a chemical-induced meltdown. It flopped at first. Later, a mechanical rig enabled the FX technicians to get more control. With these scenes and Brundle´s puss-covered appendages and missing ears, Walas stuck with Cronenberg´s desire to avoid buckets of blood.

"The Fly is more of a slime movie," notes Walas with a chuckle. "David was very reserved with his use of blood, which surprised me after having worked on Scanners. He was very aware of the possibility of overdoing it. Anytime you overdo a sequence with tons of blood squirting 20 feet to the ceiling, it detracts from the drama and stops the film´s flow. You can make it just as strong with blood only going halfway up the wall."

Walas also cites Jeff Goldblum´s acting and makeup chair endurance as reasons for the movie´s success. For stages one to three in his metamorphosis - which entailed makeup color changes to partial foam latex appliances - Goldblum went through the basics. But for steps four and five, the long-limbed actor underwent a complete makeup job that covered virtually his entire body. The final stages involved several mechanical puppet rigs. Although it might not be apparent in the film, the final Fly appearance represents the molecular combination of Brundle and the telepod which occurs when Borans (Getz) shotguns the in-progress transmission. Walas avoided a biomechanical look for the last "Brundlething" creature.

"It´s an organic mess," says Walas of the stage seven puppet. "We decided to make it as pathetic as possible. If it resembled something mechanical, it would´ve appeared to functional and not hopeless enough. It had to look like it was in pain just existing."

Following those intensive six to eight months on The Fly, it comes as little surprise that Walas became bedridden with pneumonia after the film wrapped. After a needed month-long rest, Walas and his "Howling Commandos" went quickly to work on The Golden Child, a supernatural Eddie Murphy vehicle, the inevitable House II and Joe Dante´s latest, the "sci-fi comedy adventure" Inner Space. Though he´ll not try to get sick after completing those projects, Walas realizes that impossible production schedules are the nature of the business.

"After so many years in the industry," he begins with a sigh, "I´ve given up expecting to work on a show with enough time. What I do envision is getting pictures where everyone has a more realistic view of what the restrictions are. It´s very difficult to plan ahead unless everyone - producers and directors - understands what we do."

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"The Fly" Transformation

For special makeup FX enthusiasts or readers who just want to know how they did it, here´s a shot-by-shot examination of Seth Brundle´s seven stage transformation into the Fly. Special thanks to Prudence Emery and Chris Walas, Inc., for supplying the detailed info.

For the scene in which Veronica knocks Brundle´s jaw off, Walas´ FX team built a puppet head with removable jaw.

Stage I

The transformation begins subtly, mirrored in Seth Brundle´s face which breaks into a "bad allergic rash," the start of his red and blotchy skin discoloration. FX pro Stephan DuPuis painted actor Jeff Goldblum´s face with a dab of red, yellow and blue.

Stage II

Stage II is a more accentuated version of Stage I. Plastic was used to make facial warts and pimples. Brundle´s fingers become discolored. The scabby FX on Brundle´s scratched back were made of plastic, while the Fly hairs growing from the scratches were nylon monofilament, trimmed and tapered at the end and slightly tinted with black ink to give a translucent look.

For Brundle´s puss-oozing, nailless fingernails, tubes in the palm of his hand ran along the actor´s fingers. A rubber piece built over his fingers had a channel conected to a tibe. The small finger-tip prosthetic appliance was glued on and blended with makeup to match his own fingertips to diguise the tubing system. The crew inserted a "fingernail" in the foam rubber. The two syringes connected to the tubing system pumped up the "Fly juice" causing the liquid to "pop" the fingernails.

Stage III

Brundle´s "disease" is more advanced. His face looks bloated and lumpy and his head a bit wider. He´s losing his hair and his skin is heavily discolored. To accomplish this, Goldblum wore a prosthetic foam rubber appliance covering his ears and most of his face, leaving open only the middle part of the nose and space around the eyes and lips. Blotchy reds and bruised purple colors were added, along with a bald-spotted wig.

For the scene where Brundle loses his ears, the face appliance had fake ears. A line attached behind the ear went through a tube underneath the wig. When the line was pulled, the ear loosened. Another tube in the ear cavity attached to a syringe pumped out the "Fly juice."

Stage IV

The distorted Brundle is barely recognizable. His head is more misshapen. Goldblum wore a facial appliance covering his whole face and neck. Also, a hernia bulges on his left side, the beginnings of an extra Fly leg which develops later. Partial wig pieces on his head have patchy hair. Later in Stage IV, a full body suit is worn by the actor. For Brundle´s receeding gums and split lower gum, specially made dentures were fitted over Goldblums teeth.

Stage V

For this more wildly distorted version of Stage IV, Brundle´s head and body are lopsided. Goldblum wore a full body suitm, a mass of swirling and lumpy flesh with green and red blotchy skin tones. Five fingers exist on one hand, four on the other. He also sported a magnified contact lens making one eye look bigger than the other. At this stage, his eyes are still brown. Dental buffs will note his second set of dentures which show Brundle has lost most of his teeth. Walas´ mechanical puppet replica of Goldblum´s head features an extended lower jaw which splits in two to eject the Fly tongue. A self-contained mechanical system inside the head unfolded the eight-inch tongue. Also, cushion pads in the palms of the actor´s hands produced the Fly juice. The minimum amount of time required to apply Stage V, the most complete makeup, was four hours.

Stage VI: The Brundle Puppets

Stage VI is that moment on The Fly when the culmination of the fusion between man and fly is revealed. This served as the most involved and most important animatronic manifestation. The Stage VI Brundle (or Space Bug) is made up of several different mechanical puppets. The transformation from Stage V to Stage VI was achieved through the use of several mechanized Brundle heads, the first of which is involved in the Stathis struggle. The head was mechanized so that the jaw split and extended, allowing the character to discharge caustive digestive juices which dissolve Stathis hand and foot.

As Veronica then struggles with Brundle, she rips off his jaw. This action triggers the big transformation where the Fly finally burst out from Brundles body.

Brundle Puppets in Chronological Order / Stage V Continued

1. Flexo Jaw Head. This one required four to five operators to manipulate a full-burst puppet mechanized to display the jaw which flexes and spreads in a very non-human way, as well as the emerging eight-inch fly tongue.

2. Removable Jaw Head. It required four operators for the scene in which Veronica tears off Brundle´s jaw.

3. Transformation Head. This included the head distending and stretching (four or five operators), the eyes popping and goop dripping out of eye sockets while his new insect eyes emerge - beginning Stage VI.

Stage V to VI: Transformation

4. The transformation leg rig: a waist-down puppet operated by five covered the action of the right leg reversing his hinge, the waist pushing out, and the fourth joint forming in the left leg.

5. As Brundle´s fifth stage hand holds Veronica´s, the skin splits and three-inch long insect claws sprout.

The whole hand elongates, too.

6. The transformation torso covers the final leg emerging from the side of the torso and the skin splitting and dropping away.

Stage VI: The Space Bug

7. The walking rig: Jon Berg´s waist-down puppet (with two operators) covered the actual striding and walking of the Space Bug.

8. The hero puppet: a waist-up puppet that required five operators to control the close-up rig, full-head facial movement, two arms, a sixth leg that breaks out and moves, and shoulder movement used for all of the very specific Space Bug action.

9. A full-figure Fly that utilized a lumberjack rig mounted on an eight-foot tubular steel support. Using six operators, this stage was the most involved puppet as far as the engineering goes. The major puppet movements were controlled by one operator using a cable-controlled slave system.

Stage VII

10. The Brundlething (a.k.a Brundlebooth): Eight operators worked beneath the stage on the last rod puppet, which they controlled by hydraulics, cable systems and an electric motor drive. The FX guys put in translucent membranes / inner workings for this final fleshy metamorphosis. It still has the same face and hands of the sixth stage.

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List of Chris Walas, Inc. Fly crew:

Chris Walas, Carol K. Walas, Mark Walas, Jon Berg, Kelly Lepkowsky, Jonathan Horton, Gregg Olsson, Harold Weed, James Isaac, Guy Hudson, Stephan DuPuis, Margaret Beserra, Keith Edmier, Michael Smithson, Michael Jobe, Conrad Itchener, Robert Burman, Robin Ralston, Patricia Kowchak, Marie-Louise Kingery, Peter Babakitas, William Stoneham, Wim Jan Van Thillo, Donald Bies, Debra Tomei, Michelle Linder, Zandra Platzek, Valerie Sofranko, Blair Clark, Mark Williams, Brent Baker, Louis Craig.