Species II

Species II is a 1998 American science fiction horror thriller film directed by Peter Medak. The film is a sequel to Species (1995) and the second installment in the Species series. The film stars Michael Madsen, Natasha Henstridge, Marg Helgenberger, Mykelti Williamson, George Dzundza, James Cromwell and Justin Lazard. In addition to Madsen and Helgenberger reprising their roles, Henstridge also returned for the sequel as a new character. The plot has Patrick Ross, the astronaut son of a senator, being infected by an extraterrestrial organism during a mission to Mars and causing the deaths of many women upon his return. To stop him, the scientists who created the human-extraterrestrial hybrid Sil in the original Species try using a more docile clone of hers, Eve.

The film was theatrically released on April 10, 1998. Compared to its predecessor, the film was panned by critics and was a box-office bomb, only grossing $30 million worldwide, and $19.2 million domestically. Despite this, a made-for-television sequel, Species III, was released in 2004.

Plot
Roughly two years after the events of the previous story, an American space mission lands on Mars, and collects soil samples. Back on board, the temperature on the ship thaws the frozen alien DNA within one of the soil samples, which then attempts to infect the astronauts, causing a seven-minute time gap in radio contact between Earth and the shuttle. Despite this, the operation is still considered a success and the crew safely returns to Earth, greeted by many people and celebrates. Only Dr. Cromwell, a former scientist and now an inmate in an asylum, reacts to their return with violent fits.

Under military supervision, a team of scientists, led by Dr. Laura Baker, have created a more-docile clone of Sil, named Eve, in an effort to understand the alien life form and prepare for defense, should it ever arrive on Earth in the future.

After their return, the three astronauts are examined and quarantined to prevent them from engaging in copulation/sexual activity for ten days. However, after an honor party for the astronauts, one of them, Patrick Ross, who was absent from the party for some time as he was making out with a woman referred to as the Debutante, immediately disregards the quarantine and has sex with two women in a hotel suite later that night. The Debutante, after having sex with Patrick, undergoes an accelerated pregnancy in which her stomach expands outward with Patrick's child, splits open like a flower and the hybrid child emerges from her womb, leaving her screaming and then killing her while Patrick continues having sex with her sister, sprouting tentacles during the session. Later that night, Patrick hides the rapidly-growing hybrid child along with another hybrid child conceived with the Debutante's sister in a remote shed.

An isolated Eve, undergoing tests in the lab, shows signs of great, physiological excitement every time Patrick has sex with women.

At the space center, while Dr. Orinsky tries to contact Dr. Cromwell about the astronauts' blood samples, Patrick sneaks into the lab and disembowels him so that no one finds out that he is carrying alien DNA (although, in one alternate video version, Patrick's blood takes on a life of its own: breaking free of its glass container; flowing into one of the walls; and, then, forming the radula-like tentacle that kills Orinsky). Analysis of the corpse reveals the presence of alien DNA, similar to, yet distinct from, Eve's. Baker is reunited with Press Lennox to contain the threat. The two contact Cromwell, who explains that Mars was rendered uninhabitable by an alien species, and that he was institutionalized to silence his opposition to the Mars mission. It is revealed that he had conducted research on a Martian meteorite that had been found, discovering fossilized remains that weren't native to Mars, and tried to urge the American government to reconsider their mission to Mars on the grounds that alien DNA still remained on the planet, and that any human visitors to the planet would result in biological contamination.

After informing the military of their discovery, Press and Laura begin their search on Anne, Dennis and Patrick after discovering the ten-day quarantine they were under had expired. They attempt to find Patrick first, but he is nowhere to be found, so they go after Anne Sampas, who was also infected with alien DNA during the return trip home. Unfortunately, by the time they are able to locate her, she has already had unprotected intercourse with her husband and has become impregnated with alien offspring, which emerges from her womb shortly after. Press and Laura manage to kill the newborn creature, but in the process it kills both Anne and her husband.

Government agents are able to locate Dennis Gamble and analyze his blood, revealing that he was not infected and is allowed to go home, though is asked if he knows where to find Patrick. He answers that he doesn't know where Patrick is, but is asked to inform them of where he is or where he might be found should he ever see him. Dennis decides to go find Patrick and investigate further.

After spending the night with his fiancée, away from everyone else, Patrick awakes to the next day to find that her body is mutilated and another alien child was born to him through her. Horrified at what he has done, he washes up, dresses in his military uniform, and shoots himself, possibly killing or even disabling the part of his human psyche. Dennis, who arrives at his location, sees what he had done, unable to stop him. Due to the alien DNA, his head immediately regenerates and he is reborn with the alien half in control. As Dennis witnesses this, he becomes scared and runs off to tell Press and Laura; he then joins Press and Laura in their mission. Patrick, with the alien half in control, begins to impregnate as many women as he can (mostly prostitutes and strippers), killing them in the process, and, possibly, burying them next to his shed where he accumulates a large, virulent brood of alien children of various ages.

At the lab, the scientists, unable to locate Patrick on their own, activate Eve's dormant alien DNA in order to telepathically track Patrick, but she also becomes more alien than human, increasing her strength, anger and mating drive. After being found at a grocery store by Press and Dennis, Patrick becomes aware of Eve and, in order to get closer to her, surrenders to Press and Dennis; this occurs after almost raping a woman he meets in the store. As they return to the lab, Eve shows signs of being in heat and libido towards Patrick. Patrick tries to enter her isolation cell, almost killing Laura in the process, but is chased off by Dennis and Press.

Later, after murdering his father, Senator Judson Ross, Patrick helps his hybrid children to cocoon, awaiting their rebirth/reawakening as adults so that they can mate with humans, hoping to eventually destroy mankind. Meanwhile, Laura finds out that Dennis had resisted infection from the alien DNA due to his carrying genetic flaw, and makes plans to infect the alien species with Dennis' DNA, as the species lacks immunity to human genetic diseases.

As the team prepares, Eve breaks free from the lab to find Patrick. The team tails her, finds the shed and kills Patrick's brood. Eve and Patrick finally encounter each other, undress and amorously perform a mating ritual in which they quickly transform into their alien forms, but are interrupted by Press, who tries to get Eve to get away from Patrick. Patrick fights off Press and Dennis and later overpowers Eve (who had attacked him at Laura's request after she begged her, appealing to her human half). He then, seemingly, kills her by forcing his penis down her throat, choking her to death. Press stabs Patrick in the back with a pitchfork coated with Dennis' blood, causing Patrick to die and disintegrate.

The military finally arrives and escorts Press, Laura and the injured Dennis away. Eve's lifeless body is loaded into the back of an ambulance. As the vehicle departs, a cat lands on Eve and causes her womb begins to swell rapidly, indicating an imminent birth after being impregnated by Patrick, as one of Patrick's children, who hadn't yet cocooned, looks on. The last thing heard is Eve's screaming as her womb bursts, leading to the events of the third film.

Cast

 * Natasha Henstridge as Eve
 * Michael Madsen as Preston "Press" Lennox
 * Marg Helgenberger as Dr. Laura Baker
 * James Cromwell as U.S. Senator Judson Ross
 * Mykelti Williamson as Dennis Gamble
 * Richard Belzer as U.S. President
 * Justin Lazard as Patrick Ross
 * Sarah Wynter as Melissa
 * George Dzundza as Colonel Carter Burgess Jr.
 * Myriam Cyr as Anne Sampas
 * Peter Boyle as Dr. Herman Cromwell
 * Nancy La Scala as Debutante
 * Raquel Gardner as Debutante's sister
 * Kim Adams as Darlene
 * Nicholas Vota as Portus, Boy In Ambulance

Development
Writer Chris Brancato was working with MGM on The Outer Limits, and knew the studio was interested in making a follow-up to Species. He pitched an idea to executive Greg Foster where this time two hybrid alien women would strike. Foster liked it, but once Brancato went to Species producer Frank Mancuso Jr., he asked to "approach this from a different angle, so that we don't have a tired retread of the original, as sequels often are". With that in mind, Brancato took inspiration from The Manchurian Candidate, where "somebody on a mission comes back, apparently a hero, but actually with some terrible demon inside", and as "the notion of a grand, unexplored place was the planet Mars", he made the first astronaut on Mars – as according to NASA scientists consulted by Brancato, human exploration of Mars was "a possibility – just a very expensive one" – be infected by alien DNA. Mancuso approved the idea, and thus Brancato explored how this new villain was one "for whom we can briefly feel a strange, Wolf Man-like sympathy – he's not responsible for having been turned into a monster" and had him face an alien woman similar to Sil, raising the doubt on whether they would battle or mate. As Natasha Henstridge was unconfirmed to return, Brancato wrote the new female, Eve, as if it was "either Natasha or a similarly beautiful woman". Henstridge still liked the script enough and the idea of working with director Peter Medak to sign for the sequel. Brancato decided to bring back two of the surviving characters from Species, Michael Madsen's Press Lennox and Marg Helgenberger's Dr. Laura Baker feeling they "were essential to bring the audience back in", but knowing Forest Whitaker was probably too busy to return as Dan Smithson, he wrote a similar African American character in the one eventually portrayed by Mykelti Williamson. Mancuso had another script done simultaneously to Brancato's, which reportedly explored the cliffhanger ending of Species where a rat was infected after eating Sil's remains. Mancuso brought in Peter Medak, responsible for the 1980 horror film The Changeling.

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 (also 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 is described in the film as being Earth-like at that time) before leaving a remnant of their own DNA in its soil. This DNA was intended to be picked up by other visitors so that their species could continue to infect other inhabited planets.

The Species basically appear to be bipedal (humanoid) forms. Unlike other aliens in the Species series, however, Patrick Ross has two types of alien forms: mating form and combat form. Patrick's alien form for copulation is bipedal, humanoid, and male version of Eve's,  while Patrick's alien form for combat (so-called 'Fighting Patrick') is quadrupedal, bigger, and more 'brutish' in appearance than Eve. His second stage appearance is also similar to the xenomorphs of the Alien films; both were designed with input from H. R. Giger.

Home media
Species II was released on VHS and DVD on October 20, 1998.

Box office
The film ranked number four on its opening weekend behind City of Angels, Lost in Space and Titanic, with earnings of $7.4 million. Domestically, the film grossed only $19.2 million from its $35 million budget. It grossed $26,817,565 worldwide, making the film a major commercial failure.

Critical response
The film received worse reviews than its predecessor. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 9% at based on 34 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads: "Clumsily exploitative and sloppily assembled, Species II fails to clear the rather low bar set by its less-than-stellar predecessor". On Metacritic the film has a score of 19% based on reviews from 13 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale. At the 1998 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, the film was nominated for Worst Sequel but lost to I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.

Dwayne E. Leslie from Box Office Magazine gave the film 1 out of 5 stars calling it "a sequel that doesn't measure up", also heavily criticizing the film's predictable and open ending. Joe Leydon from Variety magazine called the film "a half-baked rehash". He praised the special effects and technical aspects of the film but added "that's not nearly enough to camouflage the inherent crumminess". James Berardinelli described the film as awful but added "there's enough blood, gore, simulated sex, and bare flesh to prevent it from ever becoming boring".

Co-star Michael Madsen was displeased with the film according to his statement in a 2004 interview.

In the DVD commentary director Peter Medak praised the films' special effects. He expressed his opinion that audiences had too much expectation as this was a very different sequel due to not continuing from the story with the alien-infected rat that survived the finale, which hinted at a sequel in the 1995 original. Medak also admitted being uncomfortable with the amount of nudity in the film but said it was for the purpose of the story.

Merchandise
To coincide with the film, McFarlane Toys released an Eve and Patrick (in their alien form) action figure as part of their inaugural series of Movie Maniacs action figures. Both action figures came with a replica of the film's poster with skulls and bones base. Eve came with an alternate head. Two Eve action figures were produced which was dubbed the PG and R rated version. The R rated Eve action figure (in her alien form) had nipples on her breasts while the PG figure didn't. The R rated figure was released only in comic book and other collectable stores while the PG figure was released in toy stores.

The film's soundtrack on CD includes a track by B.B. King, one by Apollo 440, and 9 score pieces composed by Edward Shearmur.

Novelization
As with the first film, Yvonne Navarro wrote a novelization based on the original screenplay which gives plot and character details not seen in the film. For example, the book tells how, due to limited knowledge of the outside world, Eve does not know if Superman is a real life personality or not. It is also hinted that she was able to learn a degree of martial arts by watching old action films.

In the film, Eve is shot by soldiers, but after being briefly incapacitated her body regenerates and she continues to escape. Soldiers continue to shoot at her, but Eve manages to run past them; why she is unharmed is left unexplained. The book explains that her skin adapts (in a way similar to how her body adapts to the gas test earlier in the film), becoming bulletproof.

Other details in the book that do not appear in the film include an earlier escape attempt by Eve, and Patrick discovering new senses in a restaurant with his fiancé. In the novel, the debutante is a young, sexy, brown-eyed blonde, whereas in the film, she is an older woman who is a brunette. The debutante's sister in the novel isn't her sister but her best friend from college who often engaged in sexual games that involved seducing men.

The order of events in the novel differs from their order in the film. For example, Patrick does not encounter the debutante at the fundraiser until after Orinsky is killed by him, and Cromwell is not visited by Laura and Press until they discover Orinsky's corpse.