Movies
The Fly
“‘The Fly’ is a screen gem that reminds us that there can be a social conscience in filmmaking. It takes a marginalized genre and breathes life into it, even after fifty-three years, and shows us just what a good film can do.”
With the fallout of the Manhattan Project and the ending of World War II, there was a lot of anxiety and fear over the power of an atomic bomb and radiation poisoning could wield over the planet. This fear and dread gave rise to a new genre of science fiction and horror films (ie the Atomic Age of Horror). One of the greatest B movie horror films that were produced during the 1950s was Kurt Neumann’s The Fly.
The Fly tells the tragic story of Helene (played exceptionally well by Patricia Owens) and Andre Delambre (David Hedison). Helene contacts her brother-in-law, Francois (Vincent Price), and informs him that she has killed Andre by crushing him in hydraulic press.
The tragedy of Helene and Andre is played out in an elaborate flashback (which is a majority of the film). Andre, a brilliant scientist, has experimented with matter transporting. His transporting of small animals and objects from one transport tube into the other has merited success. However, when he is confidant to experiment on humans, he is not met with the same luck. When a fly enters the tube with him, he is horribly disfigured. As such, he cloaks his face in a black cloth. The scene where Helene pulls the black cloth from Andre’s head, exposing a giant head of a fly, is one of the most famous scenes in horror film history.
So the question is: if Andre’s body has the head of a fly, then where is fly with the head of Andre?
Helene and Andre (his body anyway) deduce that the only way to return Andre to normal is to get the “fly with the white head” and place both in the tube to recreate the incident. Unfortunately, they are unable to find the other half of Andre. Andre’s desperation and despair lead him to a hydraulic press, where he decides to end his life.
The ending is dark and depressing. Andre, a scientist who “went too far” paid for his obsession with technology. We see the fear of technology that the atomic age of the 50s play out in this exceptional film. The mad scientist-playing God-storyline takes from Mary Shelley and does its own thing with it.
The Fly is able to pull off more drama and mystery than most sci-fi/horror films. When we see Helene at the beginning of the film, we notice her almost obsessive focus and attention to small flies. Before and after the flashback of the fate of Andre paints the talented actress’ portrayal of Helene as a stark raving madwoman. Yet, we forget all of that with the flashback story.
Vincent Price’s portrayal of Andre’s brother is strong as well. He is desperate to believe that Helene’s fantastic story is real, even though the police detective (played by Herbert Marshall) is obviously skeptical. This film’s actors do a great job portraying a wide range of emotions, which gives depth to a genre that has been marginalized for several decades. Patricia Owens carries a lot of the weight of the film. She plays off of the obsessive character of Andre and the sympathetic character of Francois quite well.
The cinematography of the film is quite strong. Neumann creates a vision for the “mad scientist” as a three dimensional character who is not necessarily self-aggrandizing, yet very obsessive. Unlike Victor Frankenstein, I can see Andre Delambre as an approachable gentleman who has a great love for his family; yet, it is his single-minded nature that causes his undoing.
The Fly is a screen gem that reminds us that there can be a social conscience in filmmaking. It takes a marginalized genre and breathes life into it, even after fifty-three years, and shows us just what a good film can do.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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