Return of the Fly Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Return of the Fly Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 18, 2014

Note: This film is available in the bundle The Vincent Price Collection II.

Vincent Price’s career spanned everything from classic noir ( Laura) to somewhat questionable biographies (he played a rather unlikely Joseph Smith in Brigham Young in a film which always delighted this non-Mormon Utah native), but Price’s lasting legacy will probably always be the horror films he started making in the 1950s with the now iconic House of Wax 3D. Scream Factory, the horror themed imprint of Shout! Factory, gave Price fans a great Halloween present last year when they released The Vincent Price Collection, which included a gaggle of Price’s American International Pictures releases, often made in collaboration with Roger Corman. Scream is back now with a second volume just in time for this year’s Halloween festivities, casting a somewhat wider net that features some of Price’s horror themed outings for other production entities (as well as some AIP features). Once again generally strong technical merits and some fun supplements make this an enjoyable “treat” for horror fans.

When 1958’s The Fly turned out to be an unexpected money maker for Fox, the writing (if not the fly itself) was probably on the wall with regard to a sequel, but there were several built in problems. Most importantly, several characters were either dead or otherwise indisposed as the film came to an end. That of course has never stopped industrious filmmakers (and their bean counting studio cohorts) from working around seemingly insurmountable obstacles. In the case of 1959’s The Return of the Fly, co-writer and director Edward Bernds simply shifted the story ahead several years, so that the little boy in the first film was now a young adult, eager to follow in the somewhat mysterious footsteps of his scientist father who had perished in the first film. Brett Halsey plays Philippe Delambre, the young man, while Vincent Price returns as his uncle Francois, in the only casting holdover from the first film. Inspector Beecham, played by Herbert Marshall in The Fly, is still around, too, though played by John Sutton this time round. This slightly detached ambience gives this putative “sequel” a somewhat tenuous connection to the first film, but there’s another issue afflicting this outing, namely how to recreate the horrific fly-human combo without resorting to another calamitous mistake, as in the first film.

While Return of the Fly gives a bit of pat lip service to the traditional horror thesis of Man poking his nose into God’s territory, this outing actually ultimately relies on a bit of corporate or even political intrigue to finally get to the “money shots” of the film, where a marauding fly-human hybrid stumbles about (rather comically at times, it must be admitted) in a murderous rampage. That comes courtesy of a duplicitous character named Alan Hinds (David Frankham), ostensibly hired to assist in the teleportation experiments at the core of the story, but a man who has a hidden agenda that ends up giving Return of the Fly a weirdly schizophrenic feeling, lurching as it does between the science fiction aspects of the story and more rote crime element.

Return of the Fly has been routinely dismissed as a frail follow up to one of the most iconic horror outings of the fifties, and there’s no denying that it lacks the emotional power of the first, probably because there’s no real family element at play, despite the fact that Francois and Philippe are uncle and nephew. What may hobble the film more than anything is the perhaps questionable decision to really show the fly-human hybrid this time around. The first film cloaked (both literally and figuratively) the beast, revealing the horror for just a couple of shock moments. Here, everything is out in the open for several minutes, and the result is unavoidably hilarious.

The film still works up a decently unsettling mood, even if that mood never comes close to the original. The black and white filming, questioned if not outright disparaged by Price in various interviews through the years, actually gives the film a bleak ambience that helps to create whatever impact it manages to attain.

Return of the Fly Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Return of the Fly is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. The image is quite nicely sharp and well detailed throughout this presentation, with satisfying contrast and very nicely modulated gray scale. Blacks are deep and impressive, though there is very occasional and minor crush in a couple of key scenes where the fly is hiding in various shadowy environments (both inside and outside). There is occasional negligible damage to be seen, but nothing very distracting or intrusive (there's a hair caught in the gate in the lower right of the frame during the opening credits). Grain is natural looking and there are no signs of artificial sharpening or noise reduction.

Return of the Fly Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Return of the Fly's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix is surprisingly full bodied, especially with regard to the well done score by Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter. Dialogue is very cleanly presented, and some of the goofy but enjoyable sound effects when the teleportation machine fires up resonate quite convincingly. Fidelity is excellent throughout this problem free track.

Return of the Fly Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Theatrical Trailer and TV Spot (1080i; 2:39)


• Still Gallery (1080p; 1:38)


• Audio Commentary with Actor Brett Halsey and Film Historian David Del Valle. Halsey is quite a bit of fun on this commentary, though Del Valle makes a number of comments about Price's star power with regard to his co-star that might seem to be rather insulting to Halsey. There's some good production data here (everything was wrapped in 10 days), along with some good anecdotal information about the shoot.

Return of the Fly Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Return of the Fly is probably overall the least effective of the films in this second Price collection, but for those who don't mind a little unintentional hilarity tagging along with occasional scares, the film is enjoyable enough on its own lo-fi merits. Technical merits are very strong for those who are interested in this title.