SPECIES II (1998)

a review by Evan Landon

...might as well, right?

After my review of Species, I happened to catch it's sequel, which has a very special place in my cold, horror-filled heart. Where else can you find a movie even hornier, gorier, and more depraved than the original whilst still having some semblance of a cogent plot stemming from the original? If not, why not? Well, even though it does go more into the origin of the eponymous Species, it is considered one of the worst films of 1998 and the box office totals definitely illustrate that.

In this cinematic offering, we are reconnected with two of the three survivors from the last movie, Michael Madsen and Marg Helgenberger (who fucked in the last movie, but hate each other now for whatevs reason), who are tasked with finding the exact clone of “Sil” from the first movie, “Eve”, after she escapes from the laboratory the latter was operating. As it turns out, “Eve” was written just in case they could not get Henstridge to reprise her role from the original (she did), but they also rewrote the part of Forest Whitaker's empath, Dan Smithson, for Mykelti Williamson. James Cromwell and Richard Belzer play a United States Senator and President, respectfully, which is a sight to behold in itself.

After the events of the first movie, it had left sequel bait with a rat eating another rat with a lizard-ish tongue to snatch it up, but that has nothing to do with this one, even though that would have been a more natural direction to go in. Someone had the idea of having two alien species (Species 2... Get it?) and then another person had an idea that it should be a dude this time because that would mean they could make more little aliens, then another person said it should be a human astronaut getting infected by one on a planet. Then writer Chris Brancato and producer Frank Mancuso Jr. just said “fuck it” and threw all the ideas in a blender for this creation, to which I am all for and definitely support batshit insane ideas such as this. At times, it kind of seems like a hardcore episode of the X-Files, if I'm going to be perfectly honest, which is odd because Brancato was also the writer of the season one episode, “Eve”. How apropos, is it not?

Not everybody thinks the same way I do, so this movie ended up failing as one of the biggest box office bombs of the nineties pulling in only $19.2 million against a $35 million budget. In fact, it was hardly a critical darling either, but that hardly matters in science fiction horror sequels such as this.

There is a lot of great use of practical effects. CGI can only take you so far, yknow, so when they use them much more sparingly in this one to rely on practical ones, it really makes a difference. I do not think this is a terrible follow-up to a classic such as the original, in all honesty. Like I always say, don't just listen to critics or even anyone else (unless you truly value their opinions). Go see it for yourself and formulate your own opinions. Or don't, yknow. Do whatever you want, I guess. It's your life. However, I have a soft spot in my heart for this strange, grotesque, popcorn flick.

The alien death scene via dick suffocation in the finale might be worth the run time alone, but there are a lot of scenes like that.

3 out of 5