The Screwfly Solution

MOVIE #1,900 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 08.17.24 When this starts, it appears to be operating in the overtly political/satirical lane of Dante’s first Masters of Horror episode (“Homecoming”). My initial thought was: first, Joe took on the industrial military complex then he went straight for the patriarchy, both in total low budget Showtime movie black comedy schlock! But this takes a dark turn into dystopian sci-fi — it’s assuredly NOT a satire. Based on a 1977 short story, this is a parable about toxic masculinity and religious fundamentalism. As a made-for-TV movie, it’s B (or C) level, at best, but it’s simply fun to think that the guy who made Gremlins is behind the camera when you’re watching it…

The end of this / ultimate explanation (SPOILER ALERT lol) is pretty random and funny though. It’s aliens…


I’m not sure if “evil aliens invent a brain disease that makes men kill women” is the best punctuation to your statement on these important matters, but I also can’t argue with the beauty of those cheap 00s special FX.

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"The Screwfly Solution" is the seventh episode in the second season of Masters of Horror. It is based upon the 1977 science fiction short story of the same name by Alice Sheldon (under the alias Raccoona Sheldon), credited in the film as James Tiptree, Jr. Many of the scenes in Sam Hamm's script are expansions of single lines in this epistolary story. Director Joe Dante read the story in the 1980s and had wanted to make a film version ever since. He presented the story as straight horror, eschewing his usual humor and without using his usual company of stock actors. Jason Priestley and Elliott Gould star. It was released on December 8, 2006.