Space 1979: The one with a stop-motion Tyrannosaurus skeleton and a generic superhero

 

Title: Dr. Mordrid

What Year?: 1992

Category: Knockoff/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: Downright Decent! (4/5)

 

I’m continuing my bid for a streak of 5 reviews in 1 week, and I felt like doing one more outside this feature’s usual range. This time, I’m making my second foray into the 1990s, which I last did for Highway To Hell. Anyone who remembers that movie or my review of it should be able to guess that this one is going to be… interesting. I introduce you to a movie with a character lifted from a certain comic book, a stop-motion dinosaur, and of course, Charles Band.

Our story begins with an atmospheric shot of what could be wither the den of a wizard or the rec room of a very eccentric collector. We learn momentarily that it is the dwelling of Dr. Mordrid, a sorcerer and respected authority of the black arts who is the champion of an unseen Monitor. His master warns him of a threat from an avatar of evil, introduced momentarily as a villainous mage called Kabal. Dr. Mordrid soon learns more about his rival’s doings while moonlighting as a police psychologist. He reveals to a lady cop acquaintance that the villain is gathering artifacts to open a portal to the netherworld. However, his own occult expertise make him a suspect in Kabal’s crimes in the eyes of the rest of the force. On top of that, the villain has sent a minion protected by a spell of invincibility to kill Dr. Mordrid. To save the world, our hero must escape his pursuers long enough to reach a museum where the final artifact is on display, if astral projection can beat traffic.

Dr. Mordrid was produced and co-directed by Charles Band under the banner of Full Moon Entertainment, the successor to his studio Empire International Pictures. Contemporary and later accounts agree that it was very suspiciously similar to Marvel Comics’ Dr. Strange comic, which had previously received a 1970s TV movie (perhaps for another time…). Certain reports emerged that Band had obtained the rights to the character from Marvel only to have the license expire before filming. Other accounts, including the filmmakers’ “official” story, indicate that Band “created” a character originally named Doctor Mortalis with sufficient differences to avoid being sued, which in the present author’s judgment is much more in form. The egregious Jeffery Combs, who had brought himself and the Band crew to infamy with Empire’s Re-Animator, was cast in the title role, with typecast tough Brian Thompson as Kabal and soap star Yvette Nipar as the lady cop Susan. Stop-motion effects for a showdown in the museum were provided by David Allen, previously sighted in Band's Laserblast and The Day Timr Ended as well as Planet of Dinosaurs.

My recollection of Dr. Mordrid goes all the way back to the 1990s, when I very clearly remember seeing a very brief glimpse of what must have been the museum fight on a video store’s TV screen. For a very long time, it remained one of my many isolated, surreal memories that a normal person might have written off as a dream or faulty recollection. In the age of the internet, I figured out what it was, and eventually watched the scene I remembered on a video that compiled effects from a number of Band/ Full Moon movies. I looked it up occasionally, but never had the heart to watch the whole movie. However, I did think of it when I thought of this feature, despite my carefully delineated time frame and other considerations. I finally found it to watch free online, and viewed it a while before I got to this review.

After my earlier reservations, this one was a very pleasant surprise. To begin with, the whole thing goes by in only a little over an hour, so there’s no sense of time invested or wasted. More importantly, almost everything on screen goes into the story or character development, avoiding the filler that inexplicably crops up in many films of this length (something I previously held up as a relative virtue of Plan 9 From Outer Space and the worst failing of Alien 2). The chief flaws to be found lie in a police procedural element, which certainly doesn’t work as well as in The Hidden, Night of the Creeps, or Deep Space. On the other hand, the dialogue is good, and the leads are fun every minute, with Thompson stomping scenery even more than Combs. I even liked the anticlimactic arc of Kabal’s minion, which feels like what might happen if the Terminator went back in time and gave Sarah Connor a prank call.

With all that said, the “one scene” was definitely going to be the magicians’ duel in the museum. The sorcerers face each other in what looks like the museum lobby, a huge high-ceilinged atrium with the skeletons of prehistoric beasts on either side and what Kabal actually wants on display at the edge for no apparent reason. The villain starts his ritual, and we get short glimpses of a portal to the Hell-dimension opening. Mordrid arrives in astral form to challenge him. Kabal responds by bringing a tyrannosaur to life, though he can do even less to harm Mordrid’s immaterial form than Mordrid can do to him. This is the part I remembered, except my memory was of the skeleton being enveloped in an aura of light, which really only happens for a moment. The animation is excellent, with a touch of graphic violence when a guard gets lunched. Mordrid counters by reanimating the skeleton of a mammoth. The clash of the two beasts really only lasts a few seconds, but if feels like what would really happen if they had met in life. It all ends with a priceless look from Kabal, who seems to have lost track of the proceedings, just in time to meet his fate.

While it took me a long time to get to this movie, I can still definitely say it influenced my love of sto-motion, science fiction and all things 1980s. The real wonder of vintage effects is that they can stay in the memory long after the movies they were in are forgotten. In further hindsight, it was a fitting epitaph for an era that would shortly end with the release of Jurassic Park. So let’s drink for Allen, Harryhausen, O’Brien and the rest. We shall not see your like again.

For links, the image credit goes to GZ Horreur, a French-language blog. I also recommend the Brandon's Cult Movies review video. While I'm at it, I still haven't given up linking to the feature Introduction.