‘The last thing I am in anybody’s hope…’
The thing that made David Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly so effective is that it was a film with real emotional heft masquerading as a B-movie. While the body horror in that film is memorable and arresting, it is the all-too-human tragedy at the heart of the narrative that makes it a masterpiece. The Fly II, directed by Chris Walas, who won an Oscar for his make-up effects in the first film, keeps the B-movie sensibility, but never threatens to explore the same psychological depths as its predecessor…
Son of Fly would have been a terrible title, but that’s essentially what this is. Eric Stoltz plays Martin Brundle, the son of Jeff Goldblum’s character in the first film. Part of his medical condition, as the son of a fly-human hybrid, is that he ages very quickly, which means we don’t have to endure a child actor in the role (or at least not for long – Harley Cross does the honours in the film’s early scenes). Daphne Zuniga plays Brundle’s love interest, Beth; Lee Richardson joins the cast as the villainous Anton Bartok; and John Getz reprises his role as a much less sleazy but still enjoyable Stathis Borans.
The first and most obvious thing to say here is that The Fly II is inferior to the film that preceded it in every way imaginable, but if you can divorce this mostly forgotten sequel from the source material, there is actually plenty to enjoy here. The monster effects are understandably wonderful (and suitably disgusting), having been created by the same team that worked on the first movie, Stoltz delivers a competent if unspectacular performance in the lead role, and the script, partly written by Frank Darabont, contains some surprisingly emotive moments.
The Fly II is a pale imitation of the film that came before it, but taken as its own thing, it’s a high-quality B-movie. With a $12.5 million budget and plenty of talent behind it, it’s no surprise that Walas’ film is perhaps deserving of a reappraisal. Taken as a pair, they make for a pretty incredible double bill.
