Review: The Fly II (1989)

Directed by: Chris Walas
Starring: Eric Stoltz, Daphne Zuniga, Lee Richardson
Written by: Mick Garris, Frank Darabont, Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat
Music by: Christopher Young
Country: United States
Available on: Blu-ray (Scream Factory), DVD (20th Century Fox)
IMDb

As is tradition when a special effects artist steps into the director’s chair of a horror flick, things get very gory. The Fly II director Chris Walas, who provided the brilliant body horror effects on David Cronenberg’s 1986 original (along with a ton of other iconic stuff in the genre), steps up the ickiness quite a bit here. His sequel follows the son of Seth Brundle and Veronica Quaife, played by Eric Stoltz, as he’s raised under the close clinical eye of a team of doctors trying to perfect the telepod technology invented by Dad Brundle in the first film. He’s growing much faster than any human, and his intelligence, physical abilities, and reflexes are also inhuman. And he’s starting to resemble his pops more every day. This film is definitely more of a traditional monster movie than Cronenberg’s classic, and the attempt to infuse a similar romantic undertone to the horror isn’t anywhere near as successful with Stoltz and Daphne Zuniga, whose chemistry is pretty awkward. But Walas’ movie is kicking ass in other ways. Of course, the special effects are the reason for the season, and there’s a ton of imagery that will sear itself into your memory, including an all-timer face-melting gore gag, the fly design itself (which is much scarier and more predatory), a head popped by an elevator, a dickhead security guard bent in half backwards, and the dog scene. Let’s talk about the dog scene for a moment; I can’t in good conscience recommend The Fly II without warning you about it. Spoiler: A dog is sent through the telepod as a test subject and the results are heartbreaking. You’re definitely going to cry when Stoltz’s character is forced to euthanize it. But you should either trudge through and accept those tears or skip that scene, because this is otherwise an effectively scary if straightforward monster movie that’s likely to satisfy you on some level. The script, written by genre notables Mick Garris and Frank Darabont, is reasonably adept at building empathy around the younger Brundle, and I found myself rooting for him when his inner fly-thing is unleashed and he wreaks gooey vengeance. And the ending, though completely unrealistic, is one of those super-gratifying EC Comics twists. It’s a little unfortunate that Zuniga seems shoehorned into the story, since she’s an otherwise affable cinematic presence, and that the story is so superficial. Regardless, this sequel isn’t appreciated enough for what it does.

Overall rating: 7.5 out of 10