Let’s face it. Martin is pretty fly for a monster alley.
It was February 1989 and a pretty highly spoken about film around the Mom-and-Pop video store (ACTION VIDEO) where I had frequented, rummaging around the horror video section like the very young gorehound I was, had just been released. At the time, I had only actually seen bits and pieces of David Cronenberg’s body horror masterpiece, THE FLY, mostly because I was six-years-old, and I had only caught a few scenes of the film courtesy of my cousins. The word around the video store via the owner and employees was that THE FLY II was highly anticipated around there, and I distinctly remember hearing those adult horror fanatic conversations as a young genre fan who had just made her crossover into able to rent slasher movies; (A Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday the 13th, etc…) I was truly fascinated by ugly movie monsters, so my parents allowed me to rent THE FLY for a watch so I could be cool like the clerks at Action Video. And holy fucking gross-out I had no idea what I was getting into.
And to be quite honest, nothing grossed me out and stuck with more than the hand-wrestling scene.
Now, being six-years-old, I didn’t really understand the true complexity of THE FLY. I knew it was gross, but also kind of sad. I also knew I kind of really dug it. So I had BEGGED my mother for us to go see the sequel because I knew it had to do with Brundle Fly Jr; and I had to see what the fuck would come next after this. She reluctantly agreed, and guess what? I lasted 30 mins before I began crying hysterically inside the theater over a beautiful dog that was turned into mush. I was immediately taken out and brought to the nearest Toys ‘R’ Us to try and help soothe my hyperventilating ass.
I cried for a damn week, y’all. Also, I’m reliving some PTSD and welling up now, even thinking of that image. Excuse me while I go cover my dog in kisses and hugs.
Anyway, it took me a few years and a lot of balls to finish the movie, I think I may have been around 12. Getting past the traumatic dog scenes was just as hard as it was the first time, but I managed to push through it- and beyond the PTSD, I actually rather enjoyed the movie.
Listen, we all know THE FLY II is in no way better than its predecessor, so let’s just get that out of the way. That being said, the sequel had some massive shoes to fill and with all the low-critic scoring on this one, I’m here to say that’s a bit unfair. Directed by the first film’s makeup and animatronic effects specialist Chris Walas, with a screenplay by Frank Darabont and Mick Garris, the sequel suffered “intense meddling” by studio execs on what they wanted to see; and according to Darabont himself, these were people that hadn’t even SEEN the first movie! That in itself is a crime and makes me want to regurgitate my own acid reflux.
That being said, THE FLY II went through at least several different ideas, scripts, and rewrites before settling on what we know starring Eric Stoltz as Martin Brundle (fun fact: Keanu Reeves was the studio’s first choice to play Brundlefly 2.0, but he turned it down), and Daphne Zuniga who took some time off from the Planet Druidia to play his love interest. We open with a woman who is supposed to look like Geena Davis giving birth in a laboratory surrounded by the assholes of Bartok Industries. She dies in childbirth as a horrified and hysterical and also now crippled, Stathis Borans looks on as what is pushed out is a wriggling larva pod (I’m so glad his smart ass in this movie) and the baby is now the sole property of Bartok Labs and what we see from the get-go, a very evil Dr. Bartok himself. The larva pod cracks and out comes a perfectly, beautiful baby boy! Or, well, so it looks like.
They name him Martin and the child grows at an enormous rate. When he’s 11 months old he looks like he is four; and to top it off his IQ surpasses that of even his own father, who he was told died of an aging disease that was passed down onto him. By year two, he looks to be about 10 and is becoming more curious about the world outside his small one, where he’s closely monitored. He eventually manages to copy a passkey that allows him to wander about the facilities late at night. He ends up in a room filled with animals that are used for experiments and befriends a cute Golden Retriever. He visits the dog often and it becomes his only friend and companion in a world where he’s led to believe he’s going to die soon from his disease. Then, that one part happens that fucking traumatized the hell out of me.
In one part of the facility, Seth Brundle’s telepods are being experimented with and of course, they decide to use Martin’s new friend as a guinea pig. And well. Ya’ know. Didn’t turn out so well. And poor Martin watched the whole thing.
Fast-forward to Martin (Stoltz) at his fifth birthday party and he is a fully grown man at this point. His gift from Dr. Bartok is his very own “private apartment” which turns out to be anything but, and his own work area where he can work on the secrets of his father’s telepods. Since Martin doesn’t sleep. he works all day and night and befriends Beth ( Daphne Zuniga) a night shift worker at the labs. The attraction to each other is noticeable right away and is kind of sweet. Kind of like watching a teenage kid discover love for the first time.
She invites him to a party at the lab and this is where the real heart of the story begins: Martin discovers that his dog hasn’t been put down, but rather being kept at the bottom of what looks like a dirty, dungeon. The mutated dog is in pain and barely mobile and Martin bursts into tears and runs away only to return later that evening and euthanize his old friend.
Things start to hit the shit fan from here.
Just like with Seth, Martin slowly begins to transform. The trigger point was an accident with an injection that left a wound that instead of healing began to ooze and drip out slimy, sticky goo. Just like with his discovery of the dog, he also finds out his real fate and what he is turning into and that Bartok is truly excited for his transformation. Hell, he straight up tells Martin upon the discovery, that’s why he’s kept him there and calm all those years. A truly devastated Martin, who looks at Bartok as the only parental figure he’s ever known,pushes him to the side and goes on a rampage inside the labs until he finally escapes. Ending up at Beth’s home, they both go on the run from Bartok and his cronies until Martin is physically unable to run anymore. A horrified Beth says he is getting worse.
But you know what, Martin at this point is starting to embrace this shit and delivers the best line of the whole movie.
Caught and taken back to the lab, Martin makes the full transformation and that’s where THE FLY II really starts to shine as a GREAT special effects monster movie of the 80s. The revenge and rampage of Martinfly is fucking perfect. IN Cronenberg’s THE FLY, we sympathize with Seth, and we feel sorry for him, but we’re really rooting for Geena Davis as Seth has completely lost his humanity side and just has “Insect Politics”brain. With Martin’s transformation, he is COMPLETELY in control. His humanity is still there. He might be a homicidal fly on the loose killing everyone in that lab, who goddamn deserves every bit of it mind you, but he still loves the puppies! And the puppies totally love him.
Also, can we sit and appreciate the makeup effects? Chris Walas nad his huge team of artists really pulled it off here in making something similar, yet totally different from Cronenberg’s version. In fact, one could arguably say, superior in some regard as the devil is always in the details. You could see every damn insect hair on Martin’s body as clear as day and for me personally, it’s right up there with Pumpkinhead as far as extremely well-thought-out monsters go.
The killings along the way on the final rampage are gory as HELL. Also, quite satisfying as unbeknownst to Bartok and his cronies, Martin has actually figured out the cure for himself that involves swapping his DNA with another healthy human via the telepods. Of course, the human donor would render up dead pretty much so Martin, because he’s a pretty nice guy for a fly, never once considered it an option. Until NOW.
SPOLIER ALERT: Don’t continue if you’ve never seen this.
In a twist of beautiful fate and poetic justice, Martin has a showdown, wild west style, in the telepod lab with Bartok and once he tries to harm Beth, who was being held as bait for Martin, and then Martin being shot at by Bartok, Martin has enough of this shit and grabs that fat fuck, dragging him to the telepod for some Gene Swapping Therapy.
Once the teleportation is complete, Martin and Bartok are fused in a gooey mess but only by some sort of slime. Martin returns back into his human self as the gene swapping therapy was successful and Bartok.. Got his just deserts as he comes out looking just like Martin’s beloved dog. The kicker is he is placed in that SAME gross dungeon, force-fed gruel and to live the rest of his miserable and painful days paying for his karma as a terrible human.
I’ll never watch that dog scene again, but I’ll watch this a million times.
THE FLY II may not be the masterpiece that Cronenberg made, but it certainly has its own merits and deserves a little praise for the things it set out to accomplish with so much standing in the way. It’s a great revenge film with a cool as hell monster. It also has one of the most brutal kill scenes I’ve ever seen.
OOOOOOF.
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