Patricia Stanley (Carole Gray) had a nervous breakdown and was in a sanitarium for about a year. One night she escapes and meets Martin Delambre (George Baker). Martin is unaware of Patricia’s background, and she is unaware of his. Patricia has no money so Martin graciously takes care of her until she can get on her feet. They end up falling in love and getting married. Martin takes her to his home in rural Quebec.
Martin and his father, Henri (Brian Donlevy) are experimenting with a teleportation devise. They are picking up where Martin’s grandfather, Andre Delambre, left off. Currently Henri is in London with his other son, Albert (Michael Graham). Henri teleported from the Quebec device to one that Albert controls in London. The authorities heard that Henri was in London and didn’t have a passport. Henri needs to transport back as soon as possible before he is caught. Martin had been in Montreal getting additional equipment for the Quebec transporter. Henri successfully transports back but had some radiation burns from the original trip to London. The new equipment should solve that problem.
There have been several problems with the device that resulted in two lab assistants becoming deformed. Another lab accident resulted in Martin’s first wife, Judith (Mary Manson), also ending up with a deformity. Now, all three are kept in locked cells in an outbuilding. Martin and Henri are also afflicted with a genetic mutation that resulted from recessive fly genes passed down by Martin’s grandfather, Andre. It requires the two of them to inject themselves with a special serum to keep from rapidly aging. Albert is the only family member that doesn’t have that gene and so he seems to be alright.
Martin is busy trying to work on the transporter while also trying to keep Patricia from finding out about the atrocities that have happened. Patricia runs into Judith one night. Henri and Martin try to tell her she was dreaming. Patricia begins to think see is going insane. The family servant, Wan (Yvette Rees), is fond of Judith and does all she can to promote Patricia losing control of her mental faculties.
In addition, Madame Fournier (Rachel Kempson), from the sanitarium, has alerted police inspector Ronet (Jeremy Wilkin) about Patricia escaping. When he tracks her down at the Delambre estate he become more interested in what happened to Martin’s first wife and the two assistants. Time is running out for the Delambre family.
“The Curse of the Fly” was released in 1965 and was directed by Don Sharp. It is a British Horror film and the third film in the original “Fly” trilogy. The other two films in the first series were “The Fly” 1958 and “Return of the Fly” 1959. It is also the only British made film of the series. A remake was done in 1986 called “The Fly” and a sequel was done in 1989 called “The Fly II”.
Although labeled a sequel, the film deviates quite a bit from the original storyline, as well as the actual sequel, “The Return of the Fly”. Connections to either of those films are tenuous, at best. A lot of people didn’t care for it and thought it was the weakest of the “Fly” series. Probably because they were expecting to see either fly creatures or Vincent Price. This is not really your basic horror movie. There’s a bit of the psychological thriller here, and some gas lighting with a few gothic influences. Although the movie is not a good monster movie, it is a good thriller. To enjoy it you need to forget about the original fly movies and look at it as a separate film.
The original fly movie was the only one of the series that was filmed in color. Other than a photograph of David Hedison in his fly costume, there are no flies in the film. The movie did so badly that it fell off the radar for a number of years. It was finally released on DVD for home video in 2007.