Fly 2 [VHS]
Chris Walas, the effects whiz who turned Jeff Goldblum into the gooey,  grotesque Brundle-Fly in David Cronenberg'sThe Flymakes his directorial  debut in this equally icky sequel. Eric Stoltz is Brundle's genetically diseased  offspring, a boy genius brought up in an experimental laboratory by a nefarious  foster father eager to see what his inevitable metamorphosis will bring. No  surprise here: like father, like son. Daphne Zuniga is his sweet young  girlfriend, and John Getz reprises his role from the first film as a bitter  alcoholic with a very bad fake beard. This cut-rate "Son of the Fly" knockoff  pales next to Cronenberg's classic, degenerating into a gory revenge flick.  Walas strains under a limited budget, and many of the more elaborate creatures  (a monstrously mutated dog, the skeletal fly monster leaping about the  warehouse-like lab) are rather shabby. The makeup is suitably gooey, slathered  in ooze and pus, and the mayhem-filled finale is a nasty but impressive  over-the-top frenzy of blood and gore climaxing in the nastiest piece of poetic  justice sinceFreaks. The opening birth scene (with a look-alike subbing  for mom Geena Davis) is an homage to Larry Cohen'sIt's Alive.--Sean  Axmaker