Review of Species II (1998) by Adam F — 24 Nov 2013

Rating: 1 / 5.

So Bad it's good rating: 2,5 / 5.

The First "Species" was a B-Horror film that was mostly an excuse to have Natasha Henstridge take off her clothes as often as possible, "Species 2" is even worse, often makes little sense. The one positive thing you can say is that does stay consistently entertaining. If you can't remember the plot of the first movie, here's what you need to know. Scientists received a transmission from outer space telling them how to splice human and alien DNA together. The resulting creature, a sexy lady with an incredible healing factor and superhuman strength had one goal in mind: breed and have her children replace humanity as the dominant. The creature managed to escape, kill a bunch of people and seduce more than a few lucky guys but her luck ran out when an under-qualified team of scientists managed to track her down and incinerate her. The movie ended with a cliffhanger, a deadly alien-rat hybrid managed to escape! Two years later, that rat died off or decided to take a vacation or something because we never see it again. Instead we tune in to witness man's first steps on Mars. A sample from the red planet contains an unseen threat though, living alien DNA! It merges with the three astronauts on board of the shuttle without their knowledge. The mission safely lands back on Earth but the head astronaut begins acting strangely. Once out of his father's sight (James Cromwell plays Senator Ross), Patrick Ross (Justin Lazard) has sex with two women (sisters who share everything) and they immediately give birth to more rapidly-growing human-alien hybrids. It's like the first movie, but this time it's a guy going around seducing and impregnating women with his alien DNA. It's time to call in the experts who survived the last movie to track down this menace. They are assisted by a clone of the creature from the first movie who shares a psychic link with Patrick. With the rapidly-growing spawns of the creature, a PR nightmare waiting to happen and a growing connection between the two hybrids, there's plenty on our heroes' plate so does humanity stand a chance against this new species?

Where do I begin with this movie? Obviously the appeal of the first movie was that it was kind of a worst-nightmare scenario for guys horror/thriller. There's a reason that sexy lady is interested in you buster, it's because she wants to give birth to the death of mankind! Use a condom, Earth could depend on it! You get the idea. It was bad, but it had some fun moments. This time, it's a male alien so the stakes are higher up. Not only is he able to go around impregnating woman after woman, but if you give birth to one of these hybrids, you're dead. On the upside, this means that if you thought seeing a naked woman was nice, but you got tired of seeing the same pair of breasts over and over, this time we get a whole parade of different women. The downside is that we get one awkward rape attempt and a plot that really makes no sense at times. So this astronaut that's going around seducing women left and right, but he's a famous astronaut; the first man on Mars. We even see that he's got his face plastered all over children's cereal! Why do people only recognize him when it's convenient to the plot? Why don't they tell the police and the civilian populace to keep an eye out for him? We're told that it's because it would be a public relations nightmare, but come on, wouldn't the fact that he leaves behind a trail of disemboweled women kind of require at least a police investigation or a press conference? When the entire population of the world is at stake, does it really matter what the reputation of one possessed man means?

As a sequel to the first film, this one isn't really that consistent with the previously established mythology. During the conclusion of "Species", Syl gave birth to a son, pretty much the same way a human would. This time though, whenever somebody gives birth, it's a real horror show! Tentacles start grabbing people's faces, women's stomachs are exploding, there's blood everywhere... no one's safe! It's hard to tell if some of the events are intentionally nonsensical or just errors. Like a scene where some of Ross' blood grows a mind of its own and kills a scientist. It appears to crawl inside the wall and create a tentacle capable of punching through a grown adult's chest in the matter of seconds... and yet no one manages to be able to connect the dead body and the blood sample he was studying as a cause for these events. I'm pretty sure that beaker was labeled and you would be able to read what was marked on it even though it fell to the ground and shattered. Like in the previous film, the ridiculously important mission gets trusted to just a couple of guys. There's a scene where a helicopter is in pursuit of a hybrid. This is complete panic; this could be the one chance to nail the creature! Somehow though, it reaches its hideout and our heroes, who are driving arrive there long before anyone else... including the helicopter!

There are some cool special effects, particularly when we see the aliens in their natural forms but other times, it's really amateurish. There's a scene where Eve, the new female hybrid is being shot at by soldiers. She falls down, all bloody. Blood starts to leak out of her wounds when suddenly, it starts going back inside her again as she recovers from her injuries. Thanks to her alien powers she gets back up but her clothes are no longer bloody. That's because the footage of her healing is the same footage we saw a second ago, played backwards! What a joke. Next shot, her clothes are bloody again, but no bullet holes. It's embarrassing to watch. Here's another bad scene: Ross has grabbed a woman at the supermarket for the purposes of sex. Apparently his alien brain is really stupid because she was flirting with him right before he forcibly grabbed her and she started screaming. He obviously has a lot of charisma because he's been able to pick up ladies left and right up to now but this time, he's got no time to wait. Unfortunately for the victim, no one in the supermarket or the parking lot is paying attention and tries to intervene. There's hope though because our heroes are right behind them. We see the creature throw the nice lady into the back of a black van (this is the awkward rape attempt I was talking about). Our heroes walk into the parking lot and they see an identical black van rocking and when they open the door, what do they see? A normal human couple trying to get it on. You're telling me there was an identical black van, with another couple attempting to have sex in the exact same parking lot? Give me a break.

The first movie you can enjoy as a sleazy guilty pleasure but "Species 2" is just a bad science fiction horror film. It's not particularly scary or sexy and is often downright ridiculous. It's so bad it made me rethink my affections for the first film. Just skip this one. (Theatrical version on VHS, October 25, 2013).