Mimic 2 (2001)

Rating: C+

Dir: Jean de Segonzac
Star: Alix Koromzay, Bruno Campos, Gaven Eugene Lucas, Will Estes

Always likely to view this favourably, having had a brush with a giant New York roach in 1999. Actually, preferred it to the original, a by-the-number monster movie; the sequel adds a bizarre psycho-sexual angle, turning the oversize insects into a bunch of stalkers, out to make Remi (Koromzay) their queen. She’s the only returnee from the first film, where she was a supporting scientist; now, she teaches science in the Bronx, but every guy she dates turns up with his face torn off – cockroaches do not appreciate competition, it seems. She’s the prime suspect (“Ergo, lesbo”, as one cop succinctly sums it up), until she ends up trapped with a couple of kids in the school, where her multi-legged pals have built her a nest.

Of course, this leads to stupidity; at no point do they, say, open a window to yell for help. Points lopped off for the irritating children too, apparently there purely so Remi has someone to whom she can explain stuff. But most of it is repetition from the original, and the need for two kids escapes me entirely. Wisely, de Segonzac doesn’t try to hide what’s going on, opting to get the action on early. The main redeeming feature, however, is Remi, as far from a standard heroine as imaginable; her idea of dinner talk is explicit details of insect sex, and she has a Polaroid gallery of herself crying. All in all, she hardly seems more genuinely human than her cockroach fan-base, and that’s refreshingly strange.