K-Y Jelly is a water-based lubricant that has been on the market since 1904, and remains one of the most popular personal sexual products available. Its slick texture and water-based formula also make it handy for movie sets, and certain slimy movie monsters were likely coated in K-Y jelly or a similar substance before cameras rolled. Goldblum remembers filming the alley scene, including the giant false wall (built at a 30° angle), his massive, full-body fly suit, and the slippery lubricant he was dotted with. Goldblum, in his memorably halting fashion, said:
“What I really remember is that little middle section where they built … a faux-brick wall, like a couple stories or so high, on an angle, like that, with a couple of window frames in it on a soundstage. And the camera would … follow me. I had to go to the top of this thing and in order to slip down the thing … I had this suit on, you know, it was a big suit. And it’s kind of sticky, it’s rubber. So in order to slide down this thing, they had to jelly me all up with, like, K-Y Jelly actually, did he tell you this?”
In “Fear the Flesh,” one can see video footage from the set, and the large plaster wall Cronenberg had constructed. In the footage, it’s clear that Goldblum’s fly suit is indeed rubber (it looks fake without the proper cameras and lighting), and that it would have definitely stuck to the wall without proper lubrication. “They took, like, tube after tube, just dut dut dut dut, and smear it all over me,” Goldblum said of the K-Y, “And I go to the top of this thing and, ‘Action!'”