Return of the Fly (1959) October 22nd, 2023

I had low expectations for Return of the Fly because this sequel to the campy and colorful The Fly was shot in a regressive black and white. Who would choose to make their sequel look worse than the original? 20th Century Fox that’s who! I suspect the choice was a cost savings measure yet somehow, against all precedent, the monochromatic Return of the Fly outshines its predecessor.

The colorless look lends a spookiness to Return of the Fly calling back to the pre code horror aesthetics of the Universal Monsters. This breathes new life into the semi-recycled plot that sees the son of the original Fly recreate his father’s experiments. The plot twist is this time the son perfects the teleportation technology but his treacherous partner turns out to be a murderous thief out to steal the plans. A law enforcement officer confronts the thief in the lab but after a struggle ends up in the teleportation tube mixed up with a guinea pig. The image of an unconscious man lying in a glass tube with big guinea pig hands and feet is a hilariously horrifying moment that’ll stick with you.

Return of the Fly also features the return of Vincent Price as the avuncular voice of reason in an unreasonable world. The horror icon shepherds his nephew through the defunct laboratory where the boy’s father and mother spent their last days together. Price reluctantly assists the experiments but unlike his previous failures to save his brother in-law, Vincent is instrumental in rescuing his nephew from the fatal fate of his fly-father. Return of the Fly gets a happy ending, ties up all loose ends ensuring there will never be another sequel, or a remake, or a sequel to the remake.