Species II
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| Species II | |
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| Directed by | Peter Medak |
| Produced by | Dennis Feldman, Frank Mancuso Jr. |
| Written by | Chris Brancato, Dennis Feldman |
| Starring | Natasha Henstridge, Michael Madsen, Marg Helgenberger |
| Cinematography | Andrzej Bartkowiak |
| Distributed by | MGM |
| Release date(s) | April 10, 1998 |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Species |
| Followed by | Species III |
| IMDb profile | |
Species II (a.k.a Species 2: Offspring and Species 2: Origins) is a 1998 sequel to the 1995 film Species. It stars Natasha Henstridge, Michael Madsen, and Marg Helgenberger.
A direct to video sequel, Species III, was produced by MGM in 2004, and premiered on the Sci Fi Channel.
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[edit] Plot summary
The movie begins roughly two years after the events of Species with the landing of the first successful manned mission on Mars. When the mission's three astronauts (played by Mykelti Williamson, Myriam Cyr, and Justin Lazard) ready their ship for the return journey, an alien life form contained within a Martian rock sample escapes and takes over their bodies. Though one of the astronauts carries the sickle cell gene that prevents the alien's assimilation, the others, Patrick Ross and Anne Sampas, are speedily infected by the alien DNA on the journey back to Earth.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, another version of Sil, named Eve, has been created. Engineered to be more docile than her predecessor, she is part of another attempt to understand the alien life form. Events soon take an unexpected turn, however, with the astronauts' arrival on the earth. While having sex with a female debutante, slimy tentacles begin to emerge from his back. When she notices them, she tries to escape from him and calls her sister, whom Patrick has already mated with, to get him off her, but it is too late as her sister has already been impregnated and dies giving birth to Patrick's offspring as her stomach splits open. Two alien children with the biological ages of four to five-year-olds are created in the process. Patrick buries the mutilated bodies of the dead women and hides his children inside his old childhood shed. Meanwhile, Dr. Orinsky, who took the astronauts' blood samples, is looking up Patrick's blood under a microscope. Just after he finds alien DNA inside his blood, the bottle with Patrick's blood inside rolls off of the table and shatters. The puddle of blood then flows forward and seeps into the wall and proceeds to mutate into an arm of tentacles that bursts from the wall and disembowels Orinsky. As he is dying, he grabs his cell phone and calls Dr. Baker and tells her that his old apprentice was right. After Orinsky dies, they examine his wounds and find alien DNA inside. However, the DNA does not match that of Eve's. Dr. Baker teams up with Press Lennox (Michael Madsen) and they pay a visit to Dr. Orinsky's old apprentice, who is in a mental institution. He explains to them that Mars was visited by the alien species billions of years ago, that it is still infected with their DNA, that any attempt to violate the planet would result in biological contamination, and that his attempt to get NASA to reconsider the Mars mission had him institutionalized. The team then begins searching for any astronauts that might have been infected. They search first for Patrick, but he is not home, so they set out to search for Anne Sampas. As they are driving to the Sampas residence, Anne and her husband are copulating in bed. By the time Laura and Press get there, Anne is already impregnated, and her stomach splits open with tentacles protruding from her womb, and an elephant trunk-like creature emerges. Her husband tries to call for help, but then the creature latches onto his face and sucks his internal organs out. Press then comes in and shoots the trunk in half as it retracts back into Anne's stomach, and she dies afterward. After they perform an autopsy on Anne, they find that her DNA does not match the one in Orinsky's wounds. The team then captures Dennis Gamble, but after a thorough blood test finds out that he was not infected because of his sickle cell anemia. They then figure that Patrick is the one. Baker activates Eve's alien DNA in an attempt to track Patrick, who has already raped and impregnated even more women and generated a large family within a matter of weeks. She detects him at a supermarket, trying to rape a woman inside a van. Though the scientists attempt to use Eve as bait in an effort to terminate him, events turn sour when she breaks free from the captivity of the lab in order to mate with Patrick. Eventually Eve does get to Patrick and start to have sex, the scientists get there in time and convince her to attack Patrick. Patrick then kills Eve, and then Patrick is killed.
[edit] The Species
The nature of the alien species is explored to a slightly greater extent in the second film. A professor claims that they originated in the Large Magellanic Cloud (called the Magellanic Galaxy), due to it apparently being the only other place carbon-based life forms have been discovered. It is also stipulated that they were a "cancerous" race that visited Mars millions of years ago and annihilated all life on its surface, (which was Earth-like at that time) before leaving a remnant of DNA in its soil. This DNA was intended to be picked up by other visitors so their species could continue to infect other planets in like manner. Since Patrick's alien form was quadrupedal (as opposed to bipedal, like Eve's form) and more 'brutish' in appearance than hers, it is assumed that this must be the common appearance of the males of the alien species.
[edit] Reception
Unlike its predecessor, Species 2 was a failure at the box office. Critics, who almost universally panned the movie, pointed to the thin storyline, poor acting and gratuitous violence.
According to Michael Madsen's official website, the actor reviewed this film as "A big mistake" himself.
