Robot Revolution: The one that's the worst Alien movie

 

 

Title: Alien: Resurrection

What Year?: 1997

Classification: Weird Sequel

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

With this review, I’m continuing my survey of robot movies, and after Willy’s Wonderland, I decided to do one more movie that I have been simply looking for an opening to review. As I have regularly commented, there are many movies that are simply “above the radar” for what I do, especially when it comes to franchises. I have worked around this rule when it comes to sequels, especially of the controversial and obscure variety. Even so, there is one franchise that I have still never featured, despite discussing it regularly since my second review. (Yeah, Inseminoid, you all owe me.) That ends now, and while I’m at it, I’m going to talk about why this monster franchise is also a big part of the history of robot cinema. I present Alien: Resurrection, and yes, it is not great. But, it can be a whole lot of fun.

Our story begins in deep space, where a secret government project has resurrected both the Alien and Ellen Ripley. They are both put under the care of one of the maddest mad scientists in history, who still hasn’t considered that if you need a host for a dangerous parasitoid, a dog or a pig should work as well as a human. Enter a crew of space pirates with a crop of kidnapped workers in suspended animation, who will never discuss the ethics of this again. The aliens spawn faster than usual, while the nosiest of the pirates connects with the clone of Ripley, now a hybrid of human and xenomorph. Alas, the aliens escape, with literally no opposition from the military crew, leaving the pirates and the Ali-Ellen trapped on board with the aliens. They must fight their way to an escape craft with the help of the least trustworthy of the remaining staff. But one of the renegades is not what he/ she/ it seems, and the queen is about to give birth to a brand new abomination!

Alien: Resurrection was a 1997 science fiction/ horror film from Fox and Brandywine Pictures. It was the fourth film in the Alien franchise created by Dan O’Bannon, developed after the character of Ellen Ripley was killed at the insistence of Sigourney Weaver in Alien 3. (Yeah, still thinking about that one.) The film was directed by French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet from a script by Joss Whedon. Weaver returned as the clone of Ripley, with Winona Ryder as Call and Brad Dourif as the mad doctor. Other cast included Ron Perlman (see Island of Dr. Moreau) as the pirate Johner and Leland Orser of Saving Private Ryan (yes, I recognized him) as the infected Purvis. The film was a commercial success, earning a box office of over $161 million against a $70 million budget. Jeunet returned to filmmaking in France, notably with the romantic comedy Amelie in 2001. The Alien franchise was not revived again until Alien Vs. Predator in 2004, which Weaver had refused to appear in prior to the release of Alien 3. Alien: Resurrection remains the final film in chronological order with Alien.

For my experiences, the Alien franchise was one more thing that I only got into at a ludicrously late date, which didn’t stop me from falling in deep. In all that time, my longest-running rant has been that I simply don’t believe in “canon” as applicable to the franchise (see, if anything, my review of Contamination). A big part of this is what Fox brought on themselves by dragging Alien 3 through development Hell just to turn out the most divisive entry in the entire franchise. But it’s also what I consider to be the best use of the franchise and creature: Keep the xenomorph, the universe and a few core characters, then let each creator do what they want. This has made me tolerant. I can take Alien, Aliens, Dark Horse, AVP, and even Alien 3 all in their place. The one thing I don’t like is being told that one entry in this vast mythos has to be accepted at the expense of any other, which has really happened only once. By comparison, the present film is the closest we ever got to an “official” film that embraced my own view of the franchise, and I have no qualms saying that what works bears out my point.

Moving forward, what can really be said about this movie is everything good and bad about the franchise, dialed up exponentially. Yes, the Aliens get as much plot armor as any of the human characters. Yes, the ship design is willfully useless. Yes, the characters repeatedly make stupid decisions for the benefit of the plot. But these are egregious for the franchise, not unique, and there are plenty of good points here, particularly a character actor-heavy cast that is well above average. Perlman and Dourif in particular are in top scenery-stomping form, somehow actually matched by Weaver. The Aliens, too, reach a surreal peak. The fine cinematography brings out the calculating menace of the creatures, and there’s real pathos from the final hybrid abomination. My pick for the two best shots in the movie are the intimate closeup of two preparing to dispatch a third (why did only Dark Horse ever think of making a cage out of dead Aliens?) and the CGI effect of a pair under water, not flailing but holding their arms at their sides for a torpedo profile. At peak momentum, this feels like either a live-action Dark Horse comic or what might have been if Roger Corman had made the first movie. (Old rant, yes, Galaxy of Terror was a rip-off, but Fox did kind of rip Corman off first…)

Then there is the robot angle. While the franchise has always been known for its title creature, it has always featured creative artificial intelligence, and this film in particular, the concepts are both developed and varied. On one hand, the ship’s computer “Father” is a fitting successor to the ship computer in the first film (really already there in Dark Star). The unobtrusive details of the ship’s functions gives a picture of decentralized artificial intelligence that is in many ways is more convincing now. Then there is (spoiler) Ryder as the android, powered by the still-unexplained gooey semi-organic tech. If anything, her character and arc is the one element that was clearly intended to be more than it is, an occupational hazard with a cast and story this bonkers. Still, she does have a part to play that becomes greater as her capabilities are revealed. It’s all the more intriguing to compare her with Ash and Bishop from the previous films. The earlier bots turned in some of the most memorable moments of the franchise, but they did not fundamentally challenge the role of the robot as either antagonist or subservient helper. Here, we truly have an AI with its (?) own agenda, with all the nuances and paradoxes that implies. There’s an extra layer of retrospective fascination in small details of behavior that don’t serve what we learn of her higher purposes. My personal favorite, by all means due for honorable mention as “one scene”, is an attempt to pick things up while wearing boxing gloves, with absolutely no pressure or encouragement from anyone else. It is a truly random moment, and that is exactly what makes a character interesting, AI or not.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with the one that has fascinated me for a very long time. As the inevitable escape unfolds, we find the military complement of the research ship running away, not only without firing a shot but seemingly without their guns. The troops at least line up to board the life pods in good order, overseen by the designated military man played by Dan Hedaya, if anything one of the more subdued of the character actors on hand. We get a good look at the pods, which have iris hatches and nifty retracting ladders. We see one or two on their way before an Alien comes into the frame, apparently still at some distance from the pod currently loading. We see the last guy climb in, then cut to the exterior, to find that the CGI-rendered creature has already reached the hatch. What follows is a stylized exterior view of the carnage (wait, is this referencing O’Bannon’s “B-17” segment in Heavy Metal?), culminating in the same unlucky guy trying frantically to get out. The commander shows no emotion as he sends a grenade clattering on the deck, shown with one of several very odd Rube Goldberg action/ reaction slow-motion shots. The pod ejects, just before exploding. That’s when we cut to the commander saluting his subordinate, without looking back at what’s coming. It may sound absurd in cold blood, and it is, but it’s a striking example of what makes the film actually work.

In closing, what I come back to is how I would rank not just this film but the franchise as a whole. When it comes to the first film and its original sequel, I have always punted. They are both excellent, yet at the same time too fundamentally different for direct comparison. By further comparison, the present film and Alien 3 are each flawed in their own ways, and by any standard outside of effects and action sequences, this one is far inferior. What makes the difference to me is that I find it to be the one entry that truly lets you take it or leave it. On top of its internal insanity, it sets itself far enough ahead that the events of the preceding films become more like legends and myth than “fact”. In this context, you could just as well say that this is a comic book or video game within the Alien/ Aliens cinematic universe, and its relative merits would be no less. Per my standard rants, this was in fact an acceptable “norm” well into the modern era of franchise genre films. I still stand by it as a valid alternative to the canon overanalysis people have become used to. With that, I can say that I have finally covered one more iconic franchise. That’s enough for one day. “Punch it, Bishop!”

No Good Very Bad Movies 1: The one that's worse Than Galaxy of Terror.

 

Title: Dead Space

What Year?: 1991

Classification: Improbable Experiment/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: Who Cares??? (2/3)

 

With this review, I’m getting to something I’ve thought about for quite a while but still meant to wait a little longer for. In the course of 150 reviews on this blog, I have frequently and vocally denied that I have ever tried to cover “bad” movies for their own sake. In fact, as I have also mentioned repeatedly, I have set quite a few of the very worst movies I have encountered as too dull, too incoherent or simply too incompetent to be of further interest. After continuing to see others cover the movies I review on “worst” movie lists, however, I decided that sooner or later, I needed to let loose and do one of my own, both of the ones usually nominated by others and those I would choose from my own experience. To start the lineup, I’m going with one of the very first movies I considered for review, which I had meant to get back to. The random kicked in when I finally took another look, and very quickly decided that underneath the unremarkable movie I remembered was a terrible movie conceived from an even worse idea. With that, I introduce Dead Space, a remake of a knockoff by none other than Roger Corman.

Our story begins with a space captain and his trusty bot besting a group of space pirate types portrayed with vastly outdated special effects that still look far better than anything we’re going to see. While effecting repairs, they get a distress signal from an isolated research outpost. There, they discover a group of scientists trying to combat the universe’s deadliest diseases by engineering an even deadlier virus to combat them. When one of the crew becomes infected, the virus creates a torso-bursting mutant that begins picking off the surviving staff. It’s up to the captain to save the day, but the secrets of the creature may lie with a scientist already dying of the deadliest disease of all!

Dead Space was a production of chronic offender Roger Corman, directed by Fred Gallo. The film is widely regarded as a remake of Corman’s 1982 film Forbidden World. Both films reused effects from Battle Beyond The Stars. The film starred Marc Singer of Beastmaster as the captain and the emerging Bryan Cranston as the ill-fated scientist, with Laura Mae Tate as the quasi-romantic interest and Rodger Halston as the robot Tinpan. The movie’s total running time is about 72 minutes, raising the possibility that it was intended for the home video market, though no sources have disputed whether it was released theatrically. It was released on disc by Shout in 2010, combined with Corman’s The Terror Within. It has since become available in digital form, including free streaming on certain platforms. Most if not all releases are in “full screen” format, possibly indicating transfers from VHS.

Moving to my experiences, I watched this movie soon after starting Space 1979, along with Forbidden World, after first discovering the surreal poster. I very seriously considered reviewing it then, which would have made it my first review of a ‘90s movie, but Forbidden World suited my purposes far better. What stayed in my mind was the strange redundancy of the later film. When Corman got his start in the 1950s, it was common and understandable to remake recent films for audiences that were unlikely to have access to the originals. In his 1980s renaissance, it would have been downright promising to remake a few old “classics” like The Day The World Ended or Attack of the Crab Monsters. But to remake a movie less than a decade old in ca. 1990, while low-budget ‘80s sci fi like Corman’s own Defcon 4 were ubiquitous in video stores, was at best an exercise in excess. Still, it might have been worthwhile, if Corman and crew has used the time to deliver a better movie. Alas, if anything, it seems carefully tailored to underperform the first movie.

This is as good a point as any to introduce what I find to be the strangest and most jarring aspect of the film: It has the ‘90s “feel” down better than movies made even later in the decade, except that what it feels like even more is a 1990s TV pilot. This in itself wouldn’t have to be a bad thing; I made the same observation about Corman’s Fantastic Four, which worked well enough to offer a new angle on that murky and ill-fated project. Here, however, there are no such mitigating circumstances. Apart from the well-done robot suit (or at least the head thereof), even the elements that generally “work” seem cheap and inferior, from the nearly immobile creature to Cranston’s underwritten character, and it’s all in the service of a premise and story we’ve literally seen before. The one further virtue of the movie is that it doesn’t have the level of plot jumps, pseudoscience and general nonsense the Forbidden World or Crab Monsters did, but the absence goes a long way to draining away any residual sense of fun.

What I still feel like I’m not getting to is how uninteresting the movie is. I suppose this is the reason I never really tried a “worst” lineup before; for me, the true worst of the worst are the ones that don’t even give me a lot to complain about. Anytime I try to think of something to say, I don’t get much further than a comparison to movies that are far more interesting, including more than a few I would otherwise consider as bad or worse from Corman himself. Galaxy of Terror borders on unwatchable for the “cringe” factor alone, but its horrors were the outworkings of an interesting idea. Defcon 4 looked as cheap and ugly as dirt, but it portrayed an ugly, dirty world.  Fantastic Four was like a train wreck that hit another train wreck, but it tried to do things nobody had tried before. What this movie really feels like is a subversive satirist trying to sell out and not even getting paid for it. Everything that made Corman’s films entertaining or at least interesting, the creativity, the energy, the antiauthoritarian-from-within tone, is thrown overboard, and all we get is a short, dull exercise in mediocrity.

That still leaves the “one scene” in my usual formula. If there’s anything at all worth further comment, it’s a battle between Tinpan and the monster. As the 50-minute mark approaches, the captain and the robot follow the monster to a cavern outside. Of course, things go badly, and the pair retreat to the base, where they stand just outside firing into the convenient atmospheric fog. The lady scientist emerges to help the captain inside. That’s when the creature comes out of the mist, providing one of the better sightings of the thing. The rig looks better than in the original movie, but is possibly even more immobile. Its main features are a gaping mouth full of wonky, rather blunt teeth and what look like a pair of oversized mantis limbs. The bot tries to counter by swinging a laser rifle, which just makes both combatants look pitiful as they flail or slap vaguely at each other. The captain tries to go to the rescue, despite the lady scientist’s best efforts, declaring, “He’s my friend!” Before push can come to shove, the robot falls, and the mist lifts enough to show that his top half is separated from the bottom half. For all its flaws, it’s a well-executed sequence with just a little emotional weight, which is more than can be said for almost anything before or since.

In closing, I only have a little more to say about this movie, and “worst” movies in general. The saying goes that perfect families are all the same, but every dysfunctional one is unique. On informed appraisal, the opposite is true of movies. The “good” and for that matter “so bad it’s good” movies are the ones that find themselves in their own way. The worst of the worst fall to a level where they are almost indistinguishable. They’re all cheap (or look that way); they’re all badly made and written; and they’re all insulting, muddled or entirely dull. What I have found most telling in looking at others’ ideas of the “worst” movie (see Plan 9 From Outer Space and Troll 2) is that they are in fact the ones with just enough creativity and audacity to be memorable and interesting. With that in mind, this particular film finds its own special kind of mediocrity, above all as a waste of money and indisputable talent that could have been put into a better project. It’s not “the worst”, but it’s the kind of movie that’s less entertaining than many that are worse, and things are only going downhill from here.

 

As a bonus, here’s my new rating system for this feature, because I definitely needed one.

 

 It’s Okay!!! (3/3): More or less carried over from my Revenant Review scale. A film of interest, subject to controversy, criticism and/or poor box office. Characterized by generally good writing, production values and conceptual development. May include intentionally “over the top”/ satirical works.

Who Cares??? (2/3): A film that meets minimum standard of production values, without inviting further interest. Usually characterized by varying combination of derivative or undeveloped concepts; unengaging characters, dialogue and acting; and exploitative treatments of dated themes and topics.

 

Dear God WHY??!! (1/3): Directly carried over from Space 1979, a film that is offensive just for existing. Characterized by any combination of bizarre and/or willfully offensive concepts; incoherent and insulting plot, writing and dialogue; extremely poor acting and production values; and frivolous use of explicit content.

 

Guinnocent!!! (Unrated/ NR): A tribute to the LJN Defender; a film that falls below or outside minimum standards of professionalism, competence and in some cases conventional storytelling and narrative. Usually applicable for historical and foreign films; “lost”/ banned films; TV/ direct-to-video movies; and other films not given a general US theatrical release.

 

Disqualified!!!: Movies I refuse to watch again or at all, within my standing rule of at least one complete viewing within 2-3 days of review.  Oh, yeah, they’re out there. And with that happy thought, I’m calling it a day.

Space 1979 Franchise Fatigue 2: The one that had to be ignored by its sequels

 

Title: The Terminator

What Year?: 1984

Classification: Mashup/ Irreproducible Oddity

Rating: Ow, My Brain!!! (Unrated/ NR)

 

In considering the lineup for this series, the real surprise was that there were no surprises, outside of the choice of Raiders of the Lost Ark to open it. I already had a good idea what “franchise” movies I wanted to cover when I first made an exception for “Trek 1”, and little if anything changed in the meantime. What I did quickly run up against were the problems that had kept me away from franchise movies in the first place. To start with, I had to work with a rating system calibrated for obscure and usually low-budget films. I also was left with a set of classifications based on actual or reputed connections to the same movies. Finally, I ended up all the way back to pop culture references and inside jokes that had been in the DNA of this feature, including the headers of most if not all my reviews. With that, I present The Terminator, the one 1980s franchise movie that was least suitable for a franchise.

Our story begins with short sequence and a text crawl portraying a war in the far-off year of 2029, fought between man and machines. We then meet our main characters, a woman named Sarah Connor and two time traveler, a wiry, nervous guy named Kyle and a muscular, nearly silent character who simply ignores most weapons. The big guy quickly acquires an arsenal and kills several women who shares Sarah’s name, attracting the attention of two police officers. Meanwhile, Sarah is spooked by Kyle as well as the murders, until he saves her from the would-be assassin. Kyle then lays out the stakes: She is the mother of an unborn leader who will lead the human side to victory in the aftermath of a nuclear war, while the other guy is a robot sent from the future to kill her and wipe out her son’s entire existence. As the cyborg closes in again, Sarah and Kyle must scramble for a way to fight back. But the most terrifying discovery of all is that the two time travelers may already have written their own future and hers!

The Terminator was the first major film directed by James Cameron, following work on the Roger Corman movies Battle Beyond The Stars and Galaxy of Terror. The movie was produced by Hemdale, a studio known low/ medium-budget science fiction and horror films (see… Highway to Hell?). The movie starred Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese and Linda Hamilton as Sarah, with Arnold Schwarzenegger in a breakthrough role as the Terminator. Other cast included Paul Winfield as Lt. Traxler and Lance Henriksen as his partner Vukovic. Bill Paxton and Dick Miller (see Night of the Creeps) had minor roles as the Terminator’s first victims. A scene revealing the discovery of the Terminator's remains by Cyberdyne was cut from the theatrical release. Biehn, Henriksen and Paxton returned in Cameron’s Aliens. The movie received a novelization by Randall Frakes, as well as a comic first published by NOW in 1988. Additional tie-in media and merchandising, including a Dark Horse comic and a Kenner toy line, did not appear until close to or after the release of Terminator 2 in 1991.

For my experiences, the foremost thing I can say is that this is probably the most personally involved with any movie or franchise outside of Star Wars. It was possibly the first I looked up all on my own, starting with a recording of T2 that didn’t even have the last half hour, so long after the movie came out that I was already legally free and clear to go to R-rated movies on my own. From there, I watched the original, the threequel, the TV show, and the reboots, I read most of the comics and a lot of the books, and I wrote my own fan novel. In all that time, I’ve rarely run across anything I didn’t like, at least at the time. But what I keep getting back to is that the original film was singularly unsuited for any kind of sequel. (I suppose this was reflected to a point in the adventures of Unit 838, which I tried to set up as a “T0” timeline.) The storyline is a literal closed loop, or would have been without idiotic interference, with John Connor and Skynet locked together in birth and death. Even apart from that, I have become far more aware how much the movie was rooted in the pop culture, politics and anxieties of the 1980s. It should have been all but impossible to update it for any other time, but that didn’t stop people from Cameron on down from trying and at least occasionally succeeding.

A big part of what got me interested in the movie is certainly the concept and effects of the Terminator, which I just realized I didn’t even cover in the usual background above. The big praise deservedly goes to Stan Winston, who went on to do the Alien Queen and Predator (see also Invaders From Mars). Credit is also due to Doug Beswick, who did stop-motion shots of the unskinned Terminator in the finale. What I think has been increasingly overlooked is that the effects actually make the cyborg appear more clearly vulnerable than earlier robots and creatures. It rarely seems to take serious damage, but a solid hit will at least have a visible effect, and eventually the cumulative effect begins to affect its performance. This especially shows in Beswick’s shots, where the jerky second-tier stop-motion accentuates the motion of the damaged machine as it actually limps after its target.

But the machine and effects are just a tool to tell the story, which mostly works its way along on pure adrenaline. The action sequences are intense, yet occupy quite a bit less of the running time than one might tend to remember. A good part of the rest is filled by the intense monologues and war stories from Reese, peaking with a line I quoted when I told my own story for this blog: “We were that close to going out forever…” There’s plenty more fun from the supporting cast, starting with Paxton’s cameo as the ill-fated punk, which I recognized on my own after a few viewings. Another highlight is Miller’s quite brief appearance as the naïve gun store owner, which I came very close to accepting as the “one scene”. To me, the most rewarding and watchable arc is the repartee between Winfield and Henriksen, which gives the movie an underappreciated police procedural vibe that carried over in movies like The Hidden. (And yes, I know all about how Arnie replaced Henriksen.) The pair are truly charming, and do a great deal to give a perspective on the proceedings that the viewer can truly identify with.

Now it is time for the “one scene”, and after more than 2 decades, the choice wasn’t easier. There was one that did stand out a little more than usual, and it was Reese’s interview with Dr. Silberman, played by Earl Boen, whom we have previously sighted in Battle Beyond The Stars and Chopper Chicks In Zombietown (??!!). Biehn is in top form giving the account of the defeat of Skynet and the unexplained limitations of time travel; there’s real pride as he says, “We’d won.” The doctor is amused if not quite mocking as he questions details of the tale. It all comes to a head when he asks how Reese can return to the future, setting up the grim synopsis: “Nobody goes home, nobody else comes through… It’s just him and me.” Meanwhile the two cops look on, and Henriksen begins to tell his own story of a memorable psychotic. In the middle of it all, Winfield interrupts him, and I like to think that his character has begun to wonder.

With all that, I once again come back to the rating. (And I still haven’t referred back to my Cyborg 2087 review for my further thoughts on the franchise backstory…) In this case, I have turned to the unrated rank simply because I cannot find a way to apply my usual scale. It was already awkward giving Raiders the same rating as The Black Hole and Krull; here, I simply cannot go further. But that is not quite the whole story, either. As much as I still like the movie and franchise, I have long since reached a point where it is difficult at best to consider it on its own merits, especially independent of the later franchise. What I can still muster is pleasure and a little bit of envy for a new generation who can now choose where to start when taking in the franchise. Take it from me, there’s no better place than the beginning.

Space 1979: The one with the coolest VHS art

 

Title: Defcon 4

What Year?: 1985

Classification: Knockoff/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: Downright Decent! (4/5)

 

Something that comes up often in discussions of ‘80s movies that I’ve so far generally avoided is nostalgia around Blockbuster and other video stores. I myself have plenty of memories about picking up movies at the video store (even the nostalgia junkies seem to have forgotten Hollywood Video), but it was never central to my experiences or recollections. The one thing where I can join with others in their fond memories is the VHS box art, especially in the 1980s and early 1990s. At its best, this was an art form as intriguing as the movies themselves, vivid, colorful and often flat-out fraudulent. And if there’s one example embedded in everyone’s brains, whether or not they ever watched the movie, it’s the charmingly macabre image above. Here is Defcon 4, the one that was seemingly in every video store that hardly anyone seems to remember watching.

Our story begins with shots of a space station that definitely isn’t up to the budget of 2001 (or for that matter The Green Slime). We then meet the motley crew, including a woman and our protagonist, a guy with a wife and a kid on the way back home. It’s soon revealed that this is not a peaceful research facility but an armed nuclear platform, just before they witness World War 3 break out below. They manage to get through Armageddon by firing only one missile to defend themselves, and soon receive heartbreaking news of the fate of the wife left behind. While they are still arguing their next move, a mysterious signal causes their living module to descend to Earth. On arrival, they discover a standard post-apocalyptic landscape that’s a little more nuanced than usual, including “terminals” that lunch the first astronaut out the hatch and several factions of relatively sophisticated raiders and hoarders. They soon run into the biggest player of all, an outwardly mild-mannered youth named Gideon who seems to treat his rise to power as a chance to reorder the world to his own liking. With help from the warlord’s old classmate, the astronauts discover his real power and his weaknesses, but to make their own play, they must first escape execution!

Defcon 4 was a Canadian film produced by Salter Street Films and distributed by the infamous Roger Corman and his outfit New World Pictures. The movie was written and directed by SSF cofounder Paul Donovan, who went on to create the cult TV series LEXX. The movie starred the late Tim Choate, a Texas-born Broadway star, as the astronaut Howe, with a Canadian supporting cast that included Kate Lynch as his female crewmate and Maury Chaykin (d. 2010) as survivalist Vinny. Lenore Zann, previously known for the slasher movie Happy Birthday To Me, went on to a career in politics beginning in 2009. The film’s famous poster and later VHS art was created by Rudy Obrero, an artist whose previous credits included package art for Masters of the Universe.  While the movie made a reported box office of only $1.5 million, it went on to evident success as a video rental title, and remained available on disc, including a 2-pack release with Hell Comes To Frogtown. More recent reviews have been almost universally unfavorable.

Like most people who have heard of this movie at all, my experiences with it begin with repeated sightings at the video stores. This is striking in itself, because as I have mentioned a number of times, my family didn’t have a TV until the start of the 1990s. I can only guess just how long this venerable title stayed there, though the only movie I have stronger or later recollections of is Creature. Even now, that artwork is a masterpiece, so vivid I’m tempted to wonder if Corman got hold of the poster first and then tried to find o a movie to attach it to. I’ve also increasingly pondered whether the art created expectations no movie could live up to. For my own part, I gave it a viewing not too long after starting this feature, after more than a year on the shelf with the Hell Comes To Frogtown pack. (Dear Logos, I still have no idea what to do with that one.) The result was another one for the “maybe” pile, not because it was bad, but because I needed time to take a closer look.

On any amount of consideration, what stands out about this movie is paradoxically that there’s nothing extreme or egregious. The violence is limited to a few sequences, with even less gore. Nudity and sexual content only come up in passing, and then mainly in a painful conversation between two male characters. Even the music by Christopher Young (also credited for… Spiderman 2?!), one of the few things to receive favorable comment, is very low-key, dominated by metallic tones that fit the jury-rigged look of the production design. The immediate result is that the already threadbare film lacks the shock value and general energy that made many post-apocalyptic movies either beloved or notorious, including many of Corman’s own offerings. I strongly suspect this is a major reason why so few people seem to remember watching the damn thing in the VHS era; quite a few who succumbed to the appeal of the artwork may well have flat-out forgotten the movie. On consideration, however, it lends a certain element of realism to the proceedings that makes the plight of the characters more compelling. If the movie looks colorless, dull, and cheap, it at least captures the feel of what the world it portrays would be like.

Even with that marginal virtue, the film owes most of its watchability to the characters of Vinny and Gideon. The former character starts out obviously despicable, and doesn’t really improve despite significant effort put into a redemption arc. That doesn’t make the performance by the quite prolific Chaykin any less entertaining, and one gradually gets a sense at least of rational villainy, no more or less petty and opportunistic than the setting demands. There’s a further sense of his character in the unfortunately short sequences with his improvised armored vehicle, the one bit of Mad Max-style fun in the film. By comparison, the villain Gideon is uniquely unnerving, thanks in no small part to a performance by Kevin King, whose highest-profile credit was a supporting role in Iron Eagle the following year. His character arc, as further revealed by Zann’s character, feels like the kind of improbable transformation that might well occur in the collapse of civilization. His speech and mannerisms are on the level of an awkward, pseudo-intellectual college student, but it very quickly becomes clear that his version of rationalism is the fanaticism of Stalin or Robespierre, with barely veiled sadism underneath. One can bargain with the likes of Vinny, but trying to stay on his good side would be like trying to keep the Alien as a pet.

That still leaves the one scene, and I’m going with an early scene still in space. About 10 minutes in, we have already had a number of shots of the station, which tend to make it look like a flying crowbar with a 20-sided dice on either end. On the upside, we have spent enough time with the crew to get a sense of the crew as characters. It’s Howe who is watching news of a convoluted crisis on Earth when the TV station goes dead. Within literal moments, they have detected missile launches on Earth, but still argue whether a general war is under way. While the other crew members chart the devastation, Howe sees one TV channel after another go to static, with distress palpable enough that it could easily be assumed he’s as upset by the loss of programming as much as anything else. In an understated twist, it’s the lady astronaut who argues for launching their own nukes, while a very masculine commander who won’t last much longer insists on sitting it out. Then they detect an object aimed at them, and the commander fires the only shot that will matter. It’s a scene with tension and real emotional weight that was already going by the wayside in more successful post-apocalyptic fair, and credit enough for a film whose limitations will remain all too clear.

In conclusion, I will say a little more not about the movie but about the video stores. In full hindsight, I think a major reason I have never been nostalgic for them is that I was frequenting them well after others were moving on. For anyone like me, their death was like the frog in a pot. As time went on, the VHS covers went through the same degeneration as the movie poster (see my Deep Rising soundtrack rant), from imaginative creations in their own right to slick, interchangeable advertising that did little more than show off the highest-billed actors. Meanwhile, the old and obscure titles that had been most interesting to me steadily dropped off the shelves, especially after the DVD takeover started. I finally moved on when I reached a point where the movies I still wanted to watch became easier to find elsewhere. I can still appreciate the stores that are still out there selling videos (almost certainly as good as Blockbuster ever was), but I could do what I do without them. With that, I finish my tribute to a medium and an era, and once again move on.

Image credit Video Collector.co.uk, I've been using them quite a bit. I also highly recommend a post by 2 Warps to Neptune covering the artwork and the artist responsible. As always, more to come!

Revenge of the Revenant Review 16: The other one by the guy who edited Terminator

 

Title: Dead Heat aka Are We Dead Or What?

What Year?: 1988

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity/ Parody/ Mashup

Rating: What The Hell??? (2/4)

 

In the course of this feature, something I’ve thought about on and off about is what makes a “weird” zombie movie suitable for this feature. What’s counterintuitive is that I never had to worry about the movies being “too bad” for review. Conceptually creative zombie movies can usually rise to a minimum standard of mediocrity (see City of the Walking Dead and The Video Dead). On the other side of the equation, there are any number of the very worst movies I’ve encountered in this or any other genre that were never under consideration simply because their ideas are as dull as bowling balls. The one category of film that has given me trouble are zombie movies with enough “mainstream” polish that they don’t quite stand out. They may be very unusual in concept and execution, but they don’t “feel” weird (see Life After Beth). This time, I’m back with one of these, which I never really planned to be here but never would have doubted would turn up sooner or later. Here is Dead Heat, an unappreciated mid-rank filmmaker’s attempt at a zombie movie, a police procedural and a comedy.

Our story begins with a jewelry store robbery, seen from the perspectives both of the robbers and two cops, Roger Mortis and his partner/ buddy Doug. The crooks prove to be lucid enough to give commands to their victims, but a little slow at tasks like breaking open the store’s display cases. What they do have is an inexplicable ability to survive injuries, right up to when Roger and Doug destroy them with a grenade and a car. In the aftermath, a lady coroner reveals the bad guys’ secret: They were previously killed and autopsied, then somehow brought back to life. The one lead is a company called Dante Pharmaceuticals, whose late founder happens to have been researching bringing the dead back to life. When a visit to the lab leaves Roger dead, Doug and the coroner use the company’s own machine to bring him back to life, only to find that he has only a limited time before he decays away forever. With the clock ticking, the pair seek the root of the conspiracy, with a little help from the executive’s daughter. Soon, they realize the old boss may not be as dead as others believe, and his second in command is already in their own ranks. But when Doug is the next one to end up dead, it’s really personal!

Dead Heat was the first of two films directed by Mark Goldblatt, a film editor and assistant of many 1980s sci fi/ action films including the Terminator, followed by The Punisher the following year. Both films were produced by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. The production was one of several zombie comedies following 1985’s The Return of the Living Dead, with a police procedural element similar to 1986’s Night of the Creeps. The film starred Treat Williams of Deep Rising as Roger and SNL veteran Joe Pisocpo as Doug, with a limited appearance by Vincent Price as businessman Arthur Loudermilk in one of his final roles in a theatrical film. Other cast included Lindsey Frost of The Ring as Loudermilk’s daughter Randi, Robert Picardo of Star Trek Voyager as a Lieutenant, and the original Charlie Chan Keye Luke as mid-level bad guy Mr. Thule. By all accounts, the film was a critical and commercial failure, with an estimated box office under $4 million. It apparently went on to relative success on VHS and later DVD, with many releases featuring box art that omitted the zombie and horror elements. A disc release used for this review is identified as from Top Ten New Media Productions Ltd,, and presents the film in “full screen” format.

For my experiences, I genuinely can’t tell you when I first saw this one, though I’m sure I picked up my copy in 2016. Even by the standards of this feature, it’s easily one of the most random movies I have encountered, which in itself is strange to say given that its influences are straightforward. From all indications, this one was conceived as a parody of cop/ buddy action films like Lethal Weapon as much as a zombie movie. What’s entirely curious is that on paper, it doesn’t do much to push the limits of either genre. The banter and gags between the main characters are standard for the buddy genre, albeit with more than usual self-awareness plus Williams’ superb dead-pan delivery. On the zombie front, its most interesting contribution is featuring a hero as one of the undead, albeit with full human intelligence and general faculties. It is also unique in referencing the genre at several points, notably when the coroner warns Doug to “shoot him in the head” if Roger’s resurrection goes wrong.

What pushes this film off the chart if not the rails is the sheer variety in how the undead are portrayed. Undead Roger, as already noted, is pretty much himself, with perhaps a little more focus on his final case. At least one other “character” zombie appears normal and is indicated to have survived for several years at least. The rank-and-file goons are more varied; some are clearly intelligent, while others act more like animals. As with a number of other unusual zombie films, there is no hint of zombie contagion, though the villains clearly have the means to build up their forces with earlier victims. It is also thoroughly established that these undead are exceptionally durable, to the point that only pulverization or total dismemberment seems to kill them. By comparison, we specifically see several decapitated or brain-damaged humans and animals brought back to life, including a villain who shot himself in the head. Their one real limitation is the temporary nature of the process, which unfortunately is dictated more by “plot armor” than any consistent concept. The most truly out-of-nowhere moment in the film is the literal disintegration of the above-mentioned character zombie as time catches up all at once, for no better reason than that there is nothing else worth revealing.

The big problems with the film rise from the story and especially the efforts at comedy. To begin, this is yet another comedy where I find the “jokes” less amusing than the story and dialogue in general. In that respect, the most truly laugh-out-loud moment is a surreal pitch by Loudermilk to a group of would-be investors, culminating in the remark, “God doesn’t want us dead- and if he did, we can buy him off!” It doesn’t help that we never really get a reason for most of the crimes; it can be intriguing when a villain’s schemes don’t check out with conventional logic (see The Hidden), but these are clearly characters who are at least ambitious enough to set their sights on a higher goal than the loot from a few high-end heists. Finally, there’s something close to a bait-and-switch in the outwardly light-hearted tone. The level of the humor here is literally whistling past the graveyard, and anyone expecting the comedy to translate into an upbeat story with a happy ending will be very unpleasantly surprised. If anything, even those conversant with the zombie genre will be surprised by how flat-out lethal the prognosis is for the characters in the story.

That leaves me further in than usual without the one scene. By any standard, the one sequence that will be known to everyone who has heard of the movie is the infamous scene in Thule’s butcher shop. When the police close in and try to question the villain, he gleefully turns on a reanimation machine, apparently disguised as a large lamp overhead. Bolts of energy fill the shop, bringing slaughtered and partly dismembered animals to life. At this point, I feel I must be brief or else go much longer. We see what looks like dozens of birds, a squealing pig, and an unidentifiable chunk of meat that pounces like a face hugger. The highlight to me is a case full of eggs that burst for no obvious reason. Then we hear a pounding from the meat locker , complete with several visible dents. The door bursts open, and it’s almost beside the point to describe what comes forth.

Finally, I am left with explaining my rating, especially after giving the likes of Video Dead and Chopper Chicks In Zombietown a pass. I must above all qualify that I do not by any means consider this movie inferior to those or other films. But my reviews have always been about grading on a curve. Where some deserve latitude, others demand closer scrutiny, especially when the budget and overall talent is at the level of this one. On a more fundamental level, however, this film is flawed in a unique and easily foreseeable way, simply in that those involved thought they could be everything to everyone. Instead, they arrived at a final product that fell short for every potential audience: Too grim and gory for action movie fans, not smart or consistent enough for zombie movie fans, and simply not funny enough to stand on its own as a comedy. In hindsight, we can appreciate it better, but the people who made it remain entirely at fault for its failure in its own time.

Image credit Video Collector (UK).

Space 1979: The first one where roaches evolve in to people

 

Title: The Nest

What Year?: 1988

Classification: Runnerup/ Anachronistic Outlier/ Evil Twin

Rating: For Crying Out Loud!!! (2/5)

 

I have already commented occasionally that there’s quite a bit of random in what I do for this feature. On further reflection, this has been reflected most in the movies I’ve reviewed from the late 1980’s, which technically weren’t “supposed” to be within the timeline under consideration. In practice, these exceptions have been all over the map as far as how they came to my attention. Some were ones I planned to include that turned out to be later than expected, like Deep Space and Mac And Me. Some were ones I had been looking for on and off, like Dr.Mordrid, or ones in my collection that I had been meaning to watch again, like The Hidden. At least one was suggested to me, which is how I ended up reviewing Space Mutiny. Then there were ones I ran across more or less at random, when I was looking into something else, taking a break to watch something different, or just throwing on some background noise during other work. That was probably a fairly appropriate introduction to The Nest, a feature film that happens to come from the wife of the most notorious B-movie producer in history.

Our story begins with an introduction to an island town and our hero, the sheriff. He is concerned when people started noticing swarms of aggressive insects, represented with either slasher-movie POV shots or swarms of roaches. Meanwhile, an old acquaintance returns to the island, a woman identified as the mayor’s daughter, which soon creates tension with his girlfriend, a waitress who easily looks 10 years older than the new arrival and maybe older than him. As the love triangle plot goes nowhere in particular, we see more attacks by the bugs, claiming pets and at least one human. We also meet the mayor, who knows enough about what’s going on to try to hide it, and a crazy scientist lady who is breeding insects that can adapt to resist poisons and even take on the properties of their prey. As the movie unfolds, things heat up between the sheriff and the mayor’s daughter, while the bugs lunch a good part of the town’s population including the waitress. As the finale approaches, the scientist discovers one more twist: The bugs have hybridized with humans, creating a giant, seemingly intelligent monster.

The Nest was produced by Julie Corman, the spouse of Roger Corman (see Battle Beyond the Stars, Forbidden World, etc, etc), who had been making movies with or without her famous husband since the early 1970s. The story and script were written by Robert King from a 1980 novel by Eli Cantor; unsurprisingly, the insect/ human hybrids appear to have been added, though reviews and summaries of the novel do describe an insect “hive mind” mentioned at several points in the movie. The film was considered a debut for director Terence Winkless, though he had long experience in movies including directorial credit for at least one short film. The cast included Robert Lansing in top billing as the mayor, Lisa Langlois as his daughter, Franc Luz as the sheriff and Terri Terreas of the Alien Nation TV series as the mad scientist. The movie was released with some favorable reviews and an estimated box office of $3.8 million that may or not have covered its budget. As of this writing, it is available for streaming on Amazon Prime.

This movie drifted into my awareness when it popped up in recommendations for streaming. I finally gave it a viewing over a weekend, then watched it again after starting this review. What kept me interested enough to decide to cover it here was the very strange connections with other films. This is the kind of movie that “feels” like a ripoff, except that there are really very few candidates to have been ripped off. Its obvious roots are in the “killer animal” movies of the previous decade, notably Phase IV and Squirm, but those were far enough in the past that imitation can be defended as an homage rather than plagiarism. There are more suspicious similarities with Creepshow, notwithstanding the fact that Cantor’s novel came first, though if anything, the present film is far more conventional in handling the concept/ genre. What comes totally out of left field, and sealed in my mind both its inclusion here and its classification as a “runnerup”, is that the movie somehow anticipates Mimic by almost a decade. This is surely a stranger coincidence than any charge that could be made against The Nest, perhaps calling into question the later movie’s claimed inspiration of a decades-old pulp short story. However, I am still inclined to regard the two as genuinely independent, which makes their similarities far more fascinating.

Unfortunately, once again, being cleared of “ripoff” status is not the same as being good. Here, the real problem is that we have two quite different concepts in play, and somewhat surprisingly, it’s the one that comes in at the end that is far more satisfactory. The first two-thirds of its 88-minute runtime are routine by any standard, especially for anyone already familiar with the earlier films already discussed, made all the more tiresome by the human melodrama (admittedly a common denominator with ‘70s counterparts). Worse, the special effects and overall execution are indisputably inferior to the preceding films. The one sequence that succeeds in its own right is an inventive kill where the bugs start carrying off a victim’s severed arm, while many more (conspicuously an otherwise inspired scene in the diner set to “La Cucaracha”) fail simply because the very ordinary roaches aren’t threatening. Things finally get interesting when the “hybrids” appear, well into the last half-hour; incidentally, I had no idea of that angle until I was looking up information partway through my first viewing, and I still have not found anything to foreshadow it. One might wonder why they waited so long, except that the few humanoids we actually see are clearly at the limit of what the budget could support and still nearly immobile. The most genuinely menacing moment is when the mayor is seemingly transformed into a bug, something the movie doesn’t bother to hash out an explanation for, with limbs and mouthparts tearing through his skin.

Now it’s time for the “one scene”, and I considered several. The one that continued to stand out to me is the scene that introduces the hybrids. The sheriff, the mad scientist and a comic relief companion descend into a lower level of a lighthouse featured prominently in the establishing shots. They hear strange noises, and then we get a glimpse of a small creature that leaps around the room. The brief shots are clearly designed around the limitations of the effects, yet they achieve the very elusive sense of agility. The creature finally either pauses of its own accord, and the close-ups reveal an insectoid-cat hybrid. It really looks more like a zombified animal, apart from at least two very long antennae and a set of mandibles that slowly open and shut. Like the humanoids that follow, it’s awkward and cheap-looking in execution, but strange enough in concept and design to be fascinating. When the sheriff prepares to kill it, the scientist objects, leading to a pointed one-liner, “What should I do, make friends with it?” Of course, the creature strikes, straight for the sheriff. In the midst of the scuffle, the comic relief tries to come to the rescue, setting off a Rube Goldberg chain reaction that ends in another genuinely impressive gore effect. Then the companion remarks, “No bug is too big, right?”

What has kept me fascinated with this movie is simply trying to decide if there is or ever was a “right” way to make it. Even factoring in the clear limitations of the budget and limited technology, I cannot avoid the conclusion that it “should” have been done by someone else. The strongest and most unfortunate impression, right or wrong, is that the producer was trying to equal her more famous partner’s many genre entries without his help. Whether or not this was the case, the film could certainly have been done better with Roger Corman’s old crew, though that would have ultimately meant time-travelling back to when James Cameron was affordable. It would have been better still to get either stop-motion guy David Allen or the insane Chiodo Brothers crew (see Killer Klowns From Outer Space), very possibly the only people who could have done the humanoids well on this movie’s budget. What we got instead is another movie that doesn’t reach its potential, apparently for no better reason than that nobody cared enough to do better.

Space 1979 Phase 2: The one with Freddy Kreuger and My Favorite Martian

 

Title: Galaxy of Terror

What Year?: 1981

Classification: Runnerup/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: For Crying Out Loud!!! (2/5)          

 

I’ve now been doing this feature long enough to pass what I originally considered a possible end point. To mark the transition, I’ve been considering some movies I either put off or didn’t find suitable previously. It was only fitting that the first up would be the one movie everyone was probably expecting me to do all along, but one which I was never convinced belongs here and definitely was skittish about watching again. So here is Galaxy of Terror, usually considered one of the most infamous knockoffs in history… but as in the movie itself, not all is as it seems.

Our story begins with a standard setup of an ill-fated expedition whose last member is done in by an unseen force. Then in a real twist, we meet a mysterious figure called the Master, seemingly something between a mystic and a monarch, who takes enough interest to send a second team. We then meet a mixed bag of a crew with more than its share of paranoid military types, including the survivor of another ill-fated expedition. Our established protagonist is Cabren, second or third in command, supported by his lady love Alluma, the solemn ship’s cook Kore, and a familiar-looking crewmen named Ranger. After a very rough landing, they discover the previous crew already dead (after shooting one of them anyway), but still venture out to explore a huge alien pyramid nearby. The body count quickly goes off as they are picked off, not by a single or consistent monster but a series of unlikely apparitions. As the crew dwindles down to the final few, Ranger theorizes that the pyramid itself is creating their attackers as projections of their own fears. Then Cabren discovers that Kore is more than he seems, and possibly the greatest threat of all.

Galaxy of Terror was produced by Roger Corman, part of a string of Star Wars and Alien knockoffs and “runnerups” that included Starcrash, Battle Beyond the Stars and Forbidden World. The story was evidently influenced by early versions of Dan O’Bannon’s script for Alien, which per the lore was offered to Corman before being snapped up by 20^th Century Fox. The finished film was directed and cowritten by Bruce D. Clark, with James Cameron as production designer. Veteran Edward Albert, known for the crypto-biography The Greek Tycoon among others, was cast as Cabren, with Ray Walston of My Favorite Martian as Kore and Robert Englund before his Nightmare on Elm Street break as Ranger. Taaffe O’Connell was reportedly sought out for a possible nude scene, which became an infamous attack sequence. The movie made an estimated $4 million at the box office, a little more than twice its $1.8M budget. It did not receive an authorized disk release until 2010, but has been available on digital video, including free streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime at various times.

My history with this movie has to a very large extent been avoiding it. I knew of it for a very long time, and watched clips from it, but only got through the whole thing quite recently. When I thought of this feature, I considered it on my earliest lists, but I found myself resisting its inclusion, in part because of the problem of classifying it. I was never satisfied with its usual classification as an Alien ripoff/ knockoff, but it didn’t easily fit my concept of a “runnerup”, which I previously defined as a movie very similar to but independent from a more famous one. In contrast to the likes of Starcrash or Inseminoid, there was no question that Corman “copied” Alien. After learning a little more about the history, however, I decided it still fit the “runnerup” description. What this movie really is, and the way it always felt to me, is an honest “redo” of Alien, run back to its beginnings and played out on a road not taken. Unfortunately, as already seen with Inseminoid, being cleared is not the same as being good.

One thing that has never been in dispute is that the movie has excellent production values, certainly as good as Battle Beyond the Stars and arguably better than Forbidden World the following year (when Corman was already cannibalizing sets, props and actual footage from the previous film). This is borne out in the especially strong opening act, which seems eerily close to Aliens as much as the Alien. (Incidentally, I cannot credit this to Cameron’s involvement alone.) Things get most intriguing as the openly armed and militaristic crew find themselves against a threat that cannot be seen or easily identified; in that respect, it calls to mind the “bug hunts” hinted at by the space marines. The atmosphere of frustration and ambiguity continues through the first few deaths, at least one of which can be attributed to outright “friendly fire”. If one were to look for “one thing” that sends the movie off-course, it’s the outlandish and outrageous demise of O’Connell’s character, which could easily kill many a viewer’s mood by offensiveness alone.

To me, however, that notorious scene is only a symptom of a deeper problem: The story never quite decides between being a relatively orthodox “monster movie” or accepting the potential ambiguity of the horror genre. It can be said in fairness that just considering the latter possibility puts the movie well ahead of its time. While the combination of science fiction and psychological horror was tried as early as Forbidden Planet, the next “modern” movie that stands out as handling it successfully is Event Horizon, almost into the current millennium. As anyone familiar with that production will know, the movie was still plagued by both studio interference and disappointing box office returns, and arguably never saw the light of day in the form its creators intended.

Even with that context in mind, however, Galaxy of Terror mostly just gives up on its own idea. On its terms, the deadly manifestations might be hallucinations, physical shapeshifters, or some kind of holographic projection. But for every scene that could have multiple explanations, like a crewman who gets attacked on a catwalk, there are several more that leave little or none, including a jumpy crewmember who becomes the first victim. What makes matters worse is that the introduced explanation of materialized fears does little more than blame the victims, and even then, there are still only a few attacks that really “fit” anything we learn about the character, notably a bit-part character played with almost no dialogue by Sid Haig. The biggest copout is that it is Ranger who finally bests one of the apparitions, a genuinely menacing doppelganger that further highlights the physical presence of the actor, but he still gets literally ignored for the remainder of the movie. No wonder Englund settled for playing Freddy the next 20 years…

That brings us to the “one scene”, and I had a lot to choose from. For once, my choice is going to be the one that is the most graphic and flat-out brutal, and it’s not the one those familiar with the film will be thinking of. While Ranger is facing off with his double, Cabren and Alluma try to reunite. Alluma goes down a passage that’s downright inviting by the standards of the production, a simple tube with white walls and winding black filigrees that might represent vines. Suddenly, the lights dim, and she discovers that one of vine-things has snared her foot. More follow, and she screams for the unseen force to let her go. She is quickly wrapped up, and one might half-expect a monster to appear and have its way with her. Instead, the things draw tighter and tighter, to clear and gruesome effect. She continues to scream for Cabren long after she is clearly beyond help, until a tendril wraps around her head for the most grisly effect of the film. It is only then that the cameras turn to Cabren as he arrives, just in time to see the aftermath. It's horrifying, but the one thing it's missing is a sense of a universal fear, which is the same problem this movie has run into again and again. 

All I can say in closing is that writing this review at all is the closest decision so far. While I have covered plenty of movies that are obviously not appropriate for the young and/ or impressionable, I have genuinely tried to draw the line at the most “extreme” films of the era in question, especially when it comes to anything to do with sexualized violence. I will also admit I have tried to hold off on anything I feel genuinely conflicted about, which is why I very seriously considered finally bringing in an “unrated” category which I have by now used for other review features. This is a movie with a lot of good, a lot of weird, and a lot that is obviously intended to be uncomfortable for viewers of any age or era. With all that under consideration, I still find it has flaws too fundamental to forgive entirely, which is why I settled for the next to lowest rating. I may not actively hate this movie, but it is still an experiment that failed, then and now.

Super Movies! The one Marvel unmovied

 

Title: The Fantastic Four

What Year?: 1993 (post-production)/ 1994 (known showing)

Classification: Unmovie/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: Ow, My Brain!!! (Unrated/ NR)

 

One of the realities of writing is that there are always ideas and projects that you don’t get to. One of mine that goes a long way back was to do a series on what I dub “unmovies”, films that aren’t necessarily lost but were willfully censored, suppressed and flat-out dropped from any authorized distribution. At various times, I went through quite a bit of material, and further considered just what would or wouldn’t qualify. But there was one I knew I had to cover sooner or later, and once I thought of this feature, I knew it was going to be the big one. If you are anything like me, you’d know even without looking that I’m talking about The Fantastic Four, Roger Corman edition.

Our story begins with a quick introduction to Reed Richards and Victor Von Doom, two scientists ready to complete their great work. Things go awry, and a doctor announces that Victor has died of severe burns. A time jump later, Richards tries the experiment again, this time in a spaceship with his romantic interest Susan and family members Jonny and Ben aboard. Again, things go wrong, only  instead of being dead or crippled, they acquire super powers. On returning to Earth, they run afoul of authorities who want them confined for study and a conspiratorial clique led by none other than Victor Von Doom, whose reported death proves somewhat exaggerated. While Dr. Doom works on a superweapon with no obvious functionality, the team must come to terms with the transformation, particularly Ben, who has become an ugly rock creature. Add in a beautiful, blind artist and a subterranean villain, and you have a super hero movie worth a million bucks… in ca 1990 dollars.

The Fantastic Four was produced by Bernd Eichinger based on the Marvel comic first published in 1961. The German producer had approached Marvel for the rights to the characters as early as 1983, but did not secure funding until 1992, when chronic offender Roger Corman (see Battle Beyond the Stars, Forbidden World, etc, etc) provided an estimate $1 million to produce the film. While sources then and since speculated whether the film was intended for theatrical or any other release, detailed reports exist of plans for a US premiere, as well as a genuinely impressive “word of mouth” promotional campaign. Shortly before a first showing scheduled in early 1994, an agreement was reached for Marvel to pay for the expenses associated with the film in exchange for its withdrawal from all circulation. Afterward, the very existence of a finished film was sometimes questioned until it became available through “bootleg” tapes. Eichinger produced a new treatment of the franchise in 2005, which led to a 2007 sequel and a “reboot” in 2015. A documentary titled Doomed was also released in 2015, covering the history of the original film.

In hindsight, the most interesting question to emerge from the Fantastic Four movie is whether the comic was relevant or “filmable” in the 1990s or at any other time. The most noteworthy feature of the comic was its positive portrayal of science, an innovative take for a genre where villainous mad scientists were the norm. It was still a relevant and constructive message in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when more “mainstream” media were fixated on the stereotype that intelligent men must be unathletic, uncool and/ or “gay”. By then, however, there were already plenty of balanced depictions of science and masculinity that could have resonated just as well, notably Iron Man. On further consideration, the characters, style and themes of the comic were better suited to animation, which had in fact already produced a mixed bag of treatments. The problem on that front was that there weren’t many good candidates left to handle it outside the Disney hierarchy. If anyone had both the talent and the style for a Marvel animated feature, it was Ralph Bakshi, whose work I have so far taken care to avoid reviewing, and bringing him to an already troubled property would have been like handing Howard the Duck to Paul Verhoeven.

All of that merely brings us back to the movie at hand. What will quickly become apparent is that it has been a Rorschach test, very much on par with the likes of Plan 9 From Outer Space. People either want to say it’s terrible, or find some basis to defend it. In these terms, the contrarians have the better point. Obviously, the movie’s production values are outlandishly low, arguably on a literal Ed Wood level with adjustments for inflation, while the further execution struggles to reach the level of marginal competence. Even so, it manages a coherent and moderately interesting treatment of deceptively complex source material. The characters have clear identities and motivations, their actions including their use of their powers reflect both their personalities and their situations, and the story ends with a resolution to the problems posed in their relationships.

To define the comparative good and inarguably bad in the movie, I’m going straight to the “one scene” a little early, a confrontation between the film’s two villains, Dr. Doom and a subterranean mutant known as the Jeweler. In preceding scenes, the Jeweler stole a giant crystal important to Reed Richards’ research, as apparently intended by Doom, but now the doctor comes to collect it. There’s a decent enough action sequence as Doom and his reasonably capable henchmen plow through the lesser villain’s minions. The moment is somewhat brought down by the delivery of Doom’s dialogue by Benjamin Culp, a clearly competent actor who can’t seem to handle this role without sounding like Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet. Then, in a completely surreal and obviously futile move, the Jeweler seizes the artist, whom he previously abducted in hopes of making her his queen, and uses her as a human shield. Never mind that she means nothing to Doom, never mind that she will certainly be even less receptive after this, there’s still a real tension, if only because Doom seems too surprised to ridicule his adversary.

Meanwhile, the fundamental problem with the movie both in itself and as a marketed property is that it had nowhere to go. There was no way it was going to be taken seriously in theaters in the wake not only of Batman but Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park. It simply didn’t have the money to compete on that level, nor did it have the creative energy that could have put it on the level of cheapies like Killer Klowns From Outer Space (which still had twice its budget). Some might have hoped to go straight to the direct-to-video circuit, except that market was already getting far more competitive, as evidenced by Deep Space and for that matter The Punisher. The one venue where it could have had a chance was as a TV pilot, particularly for a syndicated series, which somebody might have been thinking of. Yet even there, the competition would have been a bit much. It certainly didn’t look as good as The Flash from 1990 or MANTIS from 1994 (does anybody else remember seeing that one?), though those were network shows. It could still have passed muster among daytime and weekend syndicated slots, which had previously supported superhero shows like Superboy and My Secret Identity (still at least equal to this!), except that market was about to get stomped by Hercules, Xena and the cable hand-me-down Outer Limits revival. What the film really feels like is some relic of an alternate history, where people like Corman were trying to make Marvel superhero properties in the 1960s.

That finally brings us again to the question of whether this movie is “good” or “bad”. The real reason I have left this one unrated is because I personally cannot see a fair or accurate frame of reference. As a theatrical release after 1990, it is ludicrously amateurish, and in that context, Marvel’s direct intervention was certainly and completely justified. The counterpoint is that the people who made it must have recognized that on some level, or they would not have taken the money to walk away. In the proverbial final analysis, rating a movie like this is like critiquing a writer for a journal he wrote in secret and ordered burned. If the work’s own creator chose not to let it see the light of day, the blame lies elsewhere if others dig it up and discover it’s not great. Let the blame fall on its time, and let credit go to those who moved on to better things.

The image credit goes to Rusty Staples Comic Blog, which offers a good account of the movie's saga.