Sex equals death. That's the cardinal rule of slasher movies, and it's in full effect in ``Species II,'' a worthless follow-up to the 1995 hit, which was notable primarily for the presence of the decidedly uninhibited Natasha Henstridge as an alien preying on the men of Earth.
Like the similarly ill-advised ``Grease 2,'' ``Species II'' uses the old sex-role reversal ploy to get its plot going. This time, the monster is male, an airheaded astronaut named Patrick Ross (Justin Lazard) who ends up infected with extraterrestrial DNA after strolling around on Mars. When Patrick whines about not feeling well, his politico father (James Cromwell, slumming) grouches, ``You think a trip to Mars was rough - try a Senate campaign!''
So what's Patrick to do but pick up scores of easy ladies and attempt to impregnate them with his otherworldly essence? Though considered a real looker by most of the females in his circle, Pat turns out to be considerably less attractive when he sprouts long, slimy gray tentacles during love-making.
Meanwhile back at the lab, crusading Dr. Laura Baker (Marg Helgenberger) has managed to create a docile knockout she calls Eve (Henstridge) from the genes of Sil, the troublemaker from the first film. Why Baker bothered to do this is never made clear, but eventually Eve picks up on Patrick's scent, goes into heat and escapes to find him. Wedding bells do not follow. Henstridge fans will be disappointed to learn her part in ``Species II'' is minimal and requires her to remain fully dressed almost all of the time.
Since most of the film's running time is taken up with scenes of exploding stomachs and splattering heads, we never find out how Patrick manages to dress and feed his scores of humanoid offspring, why a smart actor like Mykelti Williamson took the demeaning role of Patrick's sex-crazed buddy, or why, despite his enormous celebrity, only one woman in the entire vicinity of the Washington, D.C., area seems to recognize Patrick.
It's disappointing to see a skilled director like Peter Medak - who made ``The Krays'' and ``Let Him Have It,'' two of the best British films of the decade - wasting his time on this kind of tripe, although it should be noted he does give it some semblance of professionalism. The digital soundtrack is also highly effective, with each squish and crunch coming through loud and clear.
But what can be said about a movie that focuses largely on the struggle of government agents to keep ex-astronauts from having sex? Leave it to Dr. Baker: ``It's awful,'' she moans, prior to the slime-drenched finale. ``Just awful!''
James Sanford
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