When Mars Attacks… Our Patience
Peter Medak’s Species II is less a sequel and more a crime against both cinema and extraterrestrials. The 1995 original wasn’t exactly 2001: A Space Odyssey, but at least it had style, some genuine tension, and Natasha Henstridge’s breakout as Sil, the sultry alien killing machine. The sequel? It takes that setup, throws it into a blender with bad CGI, gallons of goo, and a script that feels like it was written on cocktail napkins during a bar crawl, then serves it lukewarm to a paying audience. The only real horror is that it cost $35 million to make and somehow grossed $30 million—proving people really will watch anything once.
Astronauts Behaving Badly
The movie kicks off with a mission to Mars where astronaut Patrick Ross (Justin Lazard), the son of a senator, gets infected by alien soil. Instead of bringing back rocks, he brings back the galaxy’s most aggressive STD. Quarantined with a strict “no sex for ten days” rule, Patrick immediately sneaks out to sleep with two women. They die mid-coitus by exploding into hybrid alien births. That’s right: in Species II, the horror isn’t subtle invasion, it’s watching a horny astronaut spread alien herpes across Washington, D.C. It’s the first slasher movie where the killer is also the world’s worst boyfriend.
Enter Eve: The Alien Who Just Wants to Chill
Natasha Henstridge returns, not as Sil, but as her docile clone Eve—because why kill off your franchise’s poster girl when you can just copy-paste her? Eve is locked in a lab, poked and prodded by scientists, and used as a telepathic bloodhound whenever Patrick gets frisky. Instead of a seductive predator, she’s reduced to watching alien porn visions and writhing on lab tables whenever Patrick hooks up. It’s less “terrifying hybrid” and more “sci-fi soap opera with bad lighting.”
Michael Madsen, Paycheck Collector
Michael Madsen reprises his role as Press Lennox, the grizzled mercenary from the first film. Except here he looks like he wandered in from a Reservoir Dogs reunion and stayed because someone promised him craft services. His character arc is basically “drink, scowl, shoot things.” Madsen’s monotone delivery suggests he was either half-asleep or counting the seconds until his paycheck cleared. Honestly, same.
Science? Never Heard of Her
The film occasionally remembers it’s supposed to be science fiction. Marg Helgenberger’s Dr. Laura Baker spouts technobabble about DNA, telepathy, and sickle-cell immunity, all while looking like she’s solving a Sudoku puzzle offscreen. The explanation for defeating Patrick—inject him with blood from a guy with sickle-cell trait—is less cutting-edge biology and more a rejected X-Files subplot. It’s as if the writers Googled “genetics” once in 1997 and thought, “Yeah, that’ll do.”
Gore Galore, Logic No More
If there’s one thing Species II delivers, it’s slime. Patrick impregnates women at lightning speed, their wombs bulge, and within minutes, alien babies rip their way out. It’s grotesque, gooey, and filmed with the kind of enthusiasm that suggests someone on set really liked The Fly but had half the budget and none of the taste. The problem? These sequences are so over-the-top they’re more funny than frightening. One woman literally bursts like a piñata at a kid’s birthday party. Nothing says horror like confetti womb explosions.
Senator Dad, Because Nepotism Never Dies
Patrick’s father, Senator Ross (James Cromwell, bless his dignity), spends the movie looking vaguely ashamed. His big contribution is political hand-wringing while his son impregnates the Eastern Seaboard. Cromwell’s performance is dignified in the way a man looks dignified when trying to ignore that his fly is down in public. Every time he shows up, you want to pat him on the back and whisper, “You were in Babe—you don’t need this.”
Telepathic Booty Calls
The most unintentionally hilarious element is Eve’s psychic link to Patrick. Every time he has sex, she senses it, writhes, and moans as if watching a pay-per-view channel through static. It’s not scary. It’s soft-core Cinemax disguised as plot. When your horror film spends more time on astral phone sex than suspense, you know you’ve lost the plot—literally and figuratively.
The Cocoon Scene: Discount Aliens
In a desperate attempt to raise stakes, Patrick eventually grows a cocoon full of offspring. It’s a gooey, slimy set piece that’s supposed to be terrifying, but instead looks like an unfinished prop from a Power Rangers villain lair. Scientists run around yelling about “the cycle” while the audience stares at foam rubber and wonders if someone spilled Jell-O. It’s more Nickelodeon slime bucket than xenomorph hive.
The Final Showdown: Pitchfork Science
How do our heroes defeat Patrick, a super-powered alien hybrid with endless regeneration? With Gamble’s blood, because of his sickle-cell trait. The climax features Madsen stabbing Patrick with a pitchfork, using it as a delivery system for the magical blood. This is less medical science and more “Grandma’s cure for the common cold” logic. The final fight ends not with a bang, but with an audience sigh of relief that the film is almost over.
Eve’s Big Finish: Pregnant Pause
After Patrick is defeated, Eve—who helped for five minutes before being promptly killed—gets loaded into an ambulance. The final twist? She’s already pregnant with Patrick’s spawn. Her stomach swells, the camera fades, and we’re left with the promise of Species III, which nobody asked for but got anyway. It’s the cinematic equivalent of being told there’s still another course coming after you’ve already eaten something that made you sick.
Why This Sequel Sucks Harder Than a Vacuum in Space
The first Species wasn’t high art, but it had a sense of danger, slick design, and a terrifyingly seductive alien antagonist. Species II replaces all that with a horny astronaut, lazy gore, and enough bad science to make Bill Nye throw his bowtie in disgust. The pacing is a mess, the characters are flat, and the film takes itself way too seriously for something that plays like Alien fanfiction written by a frat house.
Final Autopsy
Species II is a sequel that no one needed and even fewer enjoyed. It tries to double down on gore and sex while forgetting suspense, atmosphere, or even coherent storytelling. The cast looks embarrassed, the script is a disaster, and the only thing alien here is the concept of quality. If the first film was pulp, the sequel is pulp left out in the sun until it rots.
Verdict: A gooey, sleazy, logic-free sequel that proves some franchises should’ve been sterilized at birth.
