Years after the events of the original film, Philippe Delambre (Brett Halsey) uses his father’s notes to create a matter transmitter. Aided by his reluctant uncle François (Vincent Price) and his friend, Alan Hinds, he succeeds. But Alan is really a murderer who plans to steal the device. When Philippe learns of the treachery, Alan puts him into the transporter along with a fly.
I don’t recall seeing a b&w sequel to a color film before. A cheaply and quickly made follow up to The Fly, color isn’t the only thing missing. So are special effects, sympathetic characters, and all but one qualified actor. Vincent Price returns, obviously only for the money, to stand around and look disturbed. I can’t say if it is from the dangerous experiments performed by Philippe or from the script. Brett Halsey looks enough like David Hedison (who played the inventor in the previous film) to be his son. That’s the only “talent” Halsey displays. Perhaps if some time had been spent developing his character, he might have managed more than one expression. But instead, time is spent in a complicated plot designed to get Halsey into a giant fly mask. It’s not an interesting plot, just convoluted.
The filmmakers of The Fly were clever enough to show their underwhelming fly head only briefly, but such sense wasn’t in play in The Return of the Fly. The gigantic, papier-mâché head, three times the size of the mask in the first film is shown repeatedly in bright light. Don’t think “frightening monster”; think “guy in a Mickey Mouse costume at Disney Land.” There are times when the poor man nearly falls over from the weight of his huge false head.
Plot holes abound, and characters have neither sense nor motivation. The police are particularly frightening in Montreal where it seems you can put out orders to “shoot to kill” with no provocation. Luckily, the police are incompetent, unable to find a fly-person wandering about the city. I’d think that would be hard to miss. It’s not a subtle look.
The strongest compliment I can give Return of the Fly is that I’ve seen worse.