Review of The Fly II

Now I remember why I subconsciously held a grudge against this sequel! I vaguely recall seeing it at rather young age and it contains a sequence in which an adorable dog (Golden Retriever) is horribly abused during a scientific experiment! I can stand seeing people butchered easily… but not animals, so I automatically hated this movie until I re-watched it the other day. "The Fly 2" is a logical, but very nasty and unappealing sequel to David Cronenberg's 1986 cult classic. Not that it's a totally bad movie, but it's redundant and there's practically no relation to the events or characters of the original. The movie opens with a pathetic Geena Davis look-alike giving birth to some little hideous monster, shaped like a cocoon. She dies and the offspring (a boy named Martin) becomes property of Bartok Industries. The kid grows ridiculously fast and he inherited his father's brilliance to finish the work in the teleportation field. Apparently, it was destined that Martin slowly turns into a fly-creature and, when he discovers that the company didn't do anything to prevent this, he snaps and does a little bit of killing. Compared to Cronenberg's original, this sequel lacks the ability to raise compassion and sympathy for the protagonists and therefore the dramatic sequences are a real bore. Eric Stolz really tries to follow into Jeff Goldblum's footsteps but his persona is too weak and his lines are all but convincing. Since it was special-effects guy Chris Walas who directed this film, the stress obviously lies on the gore and monstrous make-up effects. The result is an exaggeratedly gross movie with few interest in plot or logic: we witness (in close-up) how a person's head is crushed by an elevator and how another man's face eerily melts after vomited upon. The "Brundlefly" itself look extremely grotesque and the forced happy-ending irritated me immensely. Due to the extremely gore content, I certainly wouldn't advise people with a weak stomach to watch it. Heck, even trained horror fans better make sure they don't watch it right after finishing lunch.