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5.6/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 5.6/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Fly Frolic remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have seven minutes to spare and want to feel like your brain is melting, Fly Frolic is absolutely worth your time today. Cartoon goths and lovers of weird, dusty old animation will eat this up, but anyone expecting a neat, logical story will probably hate it. 🕷️
Honestly, it is just so wonderfully weird.
The whole thing starts in this bustling bug cabaret where everyone is drinking and having a good time. Then this spider shows up, and he has this total Jekyll-and-Hyde thing going on.
One second he looks like a normal goofy cartoon guy, and the next he has this creepy, jagged grin. He kidnaps a housefly dancer right off the stage. 🪰
Why does he do it? The movie never really bothers to explain, and honestly, I prefer it that way.
The animation by Harry Bailey and John Foster has that rubbery, slightly unsettling 1930s feel. It reminds me a bit of the chaotic energy in Hey, Taxi!, though this one is way more creepy.
There is a moment where the spider's shadow stretches across the wall and it is genuinely spooky. The music doesn't even match the action half the time, which just makes the whole thing feel more like a fever dream.
I love how cheap and scratchy it looks. You can see the dust on the lens, and some of the backgrounds look like they were drawn in about five minutes.
It has way more soul than the polished computer stuff we get now, even if it makes absolutely no sense. It is definitely more fun than sitting through a slow, sad drama like The Orphan, even if that one is technically "better" filmmaking.
If you watch closely, one of the background flies in the cabaret scene just... disappears for a single frame. I love little mistakes like that because it makes you realize real people actually drew this by hand. ✍️
Things that made me blink twice:
It is not a masterpiece, but it is a super fun relic of a time when cartoons were allowed to be deeply strange. Give it a look if you want something short and unusual.
