Return of the Fly (1959) Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: Return of the Fly
Year: 1959
Director: Edwards Bernds 
Country: US
Language: English

Previously I have reviewed The Fly (1958) and The Fly (1986) but not Return of The Fly (1959), a direct sequel to Kurt Neumann's original chilling (albeit very campy) tale. Arriving in theaters less than a year later, the executives at Fox Studios were extremely eager to double down on their enormous financial and critical success. It's a quick-and-dirty B-movie cash-in of a film, but what else would you expect? 

Fifteen years after his father's experiments with matter transmission fail, Philippe Delambre (Brett Halsey) and his uncle François (Vincent Price) attempt to create a matter transmission device on their own. However, their experiments have disastrous results, turning Philippe into a horrible half-man, half-fly creature.

Though The Fly (1958) ended with the somewhat optimistic insistence that everyone had moved on, we learn that Helene never quite got over her husband’s death, nor did her son Phillipe. It's a more sombre film than the last, but manages to keep the right amount of cheese. It's also a pot boiler; Return doesn’t just begin with someone being transformed into a giant fly, even if that would be an understandable route to go since there’s no sense of mystery this time, but slowly builds up to it. 

There’s precious little time spent on retracing the plot points from the previous film; instead, this is more of a brisk tale of revenge that’s a bit more electric and violent than what came before. Gone are the shadows and subtle nuance of scientific paranoia, Return has some atmosphere but it's more reliant on jump scares this time around.

If The Fly could be considered a B-movie then I'd claim Return of the Fly is a C-movie. It's less entertaining, but it does deliver an enjoyable 80 minutes of run-time. Definitely worth a watch once, but I'd be very hesitant to revisit.