RETURN OF THE FLY (1959)
Tagline: Blood-curdling giant fly creature runs amuck!!!
(Sci-Fi, Horror, Science Gone Mad) [PG]
Note: This movie was not given an MPAA rating. I think it would have landed a [PG]. It was released in a double feature with THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE.
When this same ghastly thing happened to my brother he still had a human mind, a human conscience, what if Philippe does not have the mind of a human, but the murderous brain of a fly?
In this follow-up to THE FLY, we start out 15 years after the death of Philippe Delambre’s father. He decides that now that his mother is dead he must carry on his father’s work. He returns to the lab with his friend Alan who is involved in some shady stuff. As money gets tight they reach out to a reluctant Francois Delambre for financial and lab support, but they can’t get the teleportation machine they are working on to transfer live objects correctly. In a fit of rage, Alan turns on Philippe with disastrous results.
One of the casting decisions was to bring back Vincent Price for this one, but none of the other actors or actresses were. Instead of Helene played by Patricia Owens, they turned to an unknown actress at the time Danielle De Metz who takes on the female lead as Cecile Bonnard. She is Philippe’s love interest and has known him since they were kids. I guess people were pretty impressed with Danielle because she went on to do 40 more movies and TV shows until 1972 which included VALLEY OF THE DRAGONS. John Sutton takes on the role of Inspector Beecham (Alan) and does a pretty solid job. He would appear in another Vincent Price film called THE BAT that same year. Brett Halsey plays Philippe Delambre in this and he is just okay. He also appears in THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE but has had a massively successful career. Vincent Price of course is amazing as usual as Francois Delambre. He needs no introduction but is probably most famous for HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. Apparently, there was more to this script at first but the parts Price liked the most got cut.
Contrary to a lot of reviews I actually liked this one every bit as much as I did the first one. The design work on the “fly creatures” head is epic. I mean, I love this thing. One thing that bugged me about the first movie was that the fly head didn’t look proportionate to what it should look like. Being the size of a human head just kind of made it look off to me. This giant bugged-out head they give this creature is brilliant. In regards to the pacing, this one does feel a little off when we get to the third act, but outside of that, it’s petty freakin solid.
One thing I would have done differently is to give Vincent more screen time and also bumped up the screen time for Cecile. Adding a bit more of the relationship between her and Philippe would have given us more reason to care about what happens with them. Instead, Philippe just comes across as being really overconfident and completely disrespectful of his deceased mother. I also found it odd that now everyone in this movie suddenly has better ears. If you watch this one, you will see what I mean. It’s pretty odd, but clearly necessary to the plot the way it is written.
This might be a bit morbid, but there is one scene where a killing takes place and the dude is just thrown into a coffin afterward because the killing happens in a funeral home. It shouldn’t be funny, but I thought it was kind of comical. There is one weird assumption in this one because it tries to convince us that flies have a “murderous” mind. However, they do accurately state that a fly can live for two to three weeks. For some reason, I always thought it was a week, so I learned something.
Overall just the design of the creature and the storyline for me, made this a better outing than the original which I know isn’t a popular opinion, but I am going to give this one the same score. The improvement isn’t enough to push this to a 6 out of 7. I am giving it a 5 out of 7. You give me a giant bug head guy and a decent storyline and I am watching your movie.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX GROUP AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
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