SANTO VS. THE EVIL BRAIN (1961)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

Though I've seen a dozen or so Santo films, I've avoided reviewing any here, having been informed that their genesis had a complicated beginning. Nevertheless, here goes.

The first complication is that although masked wrestler Santo became a Mexican celebrity in the early 1950s, the performer himself (one Rodolfo Huerta) declined to appear in a 1952 film that would have been the first cinematic depiction of his persona. Instead, that film's wrestler-hero role was renamed and played by another actor.

The second complication is that even when Huerta finally agreed to appear in his costumed role in this film, whose exact title is merely THE EVIL BRAIN, he was not the star, nor did he depict the persona of a wrestler who was also a part-time superhero. Instead, Huerta plays what seems to be an undercover cop wearing a wrestling-outfit. This character isn' called Santo, but rather goes by "El Enmascarado" (The Masked  One,) and in BRAIN's first scenes he gets turned into the zombified slave of the titular mad scientist, in which state he remains for about half the picture. The film's actual hero is another masked police agent, known only as El Incognito, and played by Hernando Otes, who also co-wrote BRAIN's script. While Santo/Huerta had kept his character out of movies for the decade of the 1950s, Otes had parlayed his wrestling-persona into a half-dozen movies, wherein he usually played a hero named "La Sombra Vengador." In any case, while the evil scientist Doctor Campos sends his thugs and the hypnotized Enmascarado around on various criminal errands, Incognito trails along and eventually, after a hand-to-hand struggle with his fellow agent, manages to free Enmascarado from his mental enthrallment.

Both this film and a second called THE INFERNAL MEN (also still written by Otes but without his Incognito character) were lensed on a shoestring budget in pre-Castro Cuba by director Joselito Rodriguez. I haven't watched INFERNAL as I've no access to a subbed version, but I don't imagine it looked much better than BRAIN, whose visuals and stuntwork are about on the level of a particularly bad Monogram movie. Not until 1962's SANTO VS. THE ZOMBIES did the character take off in films, remaining popular for the remainder of the decade.

FORTRESS 2: RE-ENTRY (1999)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Stuart Gordon didn't return for the second and last entry in the chronicle of John Brennick (Christopher Lambert), but the writers of the original FORTRESS, Troy Neighbors and Steven Feinberg, did. They managed to replay many of the essential motifs of the first film, though with a bit less emotional conviction-- partly because the film sidelines Brennick's connection with his wife and child, partly because almost every other character but Brennick is new.

Ten years have passed since the first film, and for some reason Brennick, his wife and ten-year-old boy haven't gone to ground in Canada, but have hidden in some rural section of the U.S. Members of a resistance movement against the corrupt corporation Men-Tel find their way to Brennick and try to talk him into lending them his military skills. However, Men-Tel overtakes the rebels and kills them. Brennick sends his wife and child down an escape tunnel, which gets them out of the story, while he himself is captured.

Brennick awakes in a new "fortress," this time on a space station, but again there's a quirky warden, Teller (Patrick Malahide). Like the previous prison director, this one has intermittent conversations with the AI computer, but he also nurtures dark plans to dominate the world by turning the station into an attack satellite. As in the first film, Brennick gathers a coterie of helpers who help him fight the power, among them resistance fighter Elena (Liz May Brice), a woman with whom Brennick may have had a fling prior to marriage. She poses a very brief threat to Brennick's familial loyalties, but Teller is the main foe, though he lacks the earlier villain's repertoire of cyborg soldiers and computer-monitors. Indeed, his authority is compromised by the president of Men-Tel (Pam Grier), who arrives at the station to relieve Teller. But for all the effect the Prez has, she might have been written out. Eventually Teller is defeated and Brennick is not only freed but gets to re-unite with his family, giving the grim protagonist a happy ending of sorts.

BLOODRAYNE (2005)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

Though I suffered mightily when a friend talked me into seeing Uwe Boll's infernally boring 2007 fantasy-film IN THE NAME OF THE KING, his BLOODRAYNE films seem to be at least generally competent. Since I've no acquaintance with the video game franchise being adapted, I don't really care that he changed the characters or situations, as do some of Boll's detractors. That said, Boll certainly doesn't expend any effort setting up characters and situations. The writer credited with the script for BLOODRAYNE later claimed that Boll had only used 20% of her work, and I tend to think he's one of those guys concerned only with showy set-pieces.

Summaries claim that BLOODRAYNE takes place in 18th-century Romania, but there's nothing about the settings, costumes or actors that suggests any particular era. Central heroine Rayne (Kristanna Loken) does get a little more attention. She is a "dampire," a hybrid created by the mating of a full vampire with a mortal human-- in her case, an incident in which powerful vampire lord Kagan (Ben Kingsley) raped Rayne's mother. However, the script can't be bothered to relate how Kagan happened to choose Rayne's mother in particular, or why he wanted to induct Rayne into his retinue about five or six years after her birth. At that point in time, Rayne's mother conceals the little girl from her father, after which Kagan slays the mother for her defiance. This is effective enough in terms of giving Rayne a strong motive for vengeance.

However, Boll can't be bothered with details. Somehow little girl Rayne ends up as the property of a traveling carnival until she's old enough to be played by Kristanna Loken. It's not clear how the carnival-people-- almost none of whom show affection for the heroine-- keep her under control given that she's stronger than a human and capable of healing most wounds. But when it's good for the movie, Rayne breaks free of the carnival and sets out on her quest for vengeance.

She happens across a cadre of heroic humans, curiously given the diabolical name of "The Brimstone Society," and they train the young heroine so that she can join them in their crusade. Only three of the Brimstoners-- played by Michael Madsen, Michelle Rodrigeuz, and Matthew Davis-- are major supporting characters, with Davis getting a little more dimension when he briefly becomes Rayne's lover. 

I noted that Boll's set-pieces were showy, but most of them aren't that dynamic. One section is devoted to Rayne obtaining a mystic device from a mysterious monastery, complete with death-devices that were clearly meant to emulate the video-game vibe, but on the whole it's less than exciting. After assorted sorties and one big betrayal, Rayne finally gets her shot at Kagan, who wants to harvest the mystic device from her body, which took residence therein for some damn reason. Kagan does make the standard "join me and we'll rule the world" speech before planning to sacrifice her, but Rayne is understandably set on patricide. The big climax is at best average, which may have a lot to do with the film's failure in the same era that the RESIDENT EVIL films kept making money with their video-game heroine.

Most of the actors-- Kingsley, Madsen, Rodrigeuz-- recite their lines dutifully at best. Davis comes off a little better, while assorted tertiary players-- Meat Loaf, Billy Zane-- are just there to add a little more heft. Loken puts as much dimension as possible into her simplified character, and though it's not a masterful performance, her nomination as "worst actress" at a Razzie award was almost certainly a reaction against Uwe Boll. 

HELLBOY: SWORD OF STORMS (2006)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

STORM OF SWORDS is one of two DTV animated films released following the success of the 2004 live-action HELLBOY film. Like that film, these follow closely the template of the original comic. Hellboy, a red-skinned, horned demon with a mysterious oversized hand, became a hero thanks to having been raised as a human being. Because of his lineage, the gruff-talking demon becomes an investigator into paranormal activity, of which there's never a shortage in his world. He's joined in many adventures by pyrokinetic mutant Liz Sherman and water-breather Abe Sapien, and in STORM two of the three characters, Hellboy and Liz, are voiced by the same actors who portrayed their live-action counterparts: respectively Ron Perlman and Selma Blair.

STORM opens with a standard "heroes get in trouble sussing out ancient tomb" scenario, one having little or nothing to do with the main story. The real story involves Japanese storm-demons known as Thunder and Lightning, who have been waiting in limbo for a chance to invade the domain of humankind. The demons guide a Japanese scholar to locate the mystical sword that sealed them into limbo, but Hellboy makes the scene with a couple of fellow investigators before the demons can fully work their will. The big red guy gets hold of the sword, which instantly transports him back to a feudal Japan inhabited almost exclusively by various types of yokai. Wikipedia claims that this is an "alternate version" of Japan, but I didn't see why it couldn't have been the real thing, even though the hero doesn't meet anyone but supernatural creatures like spider-women and floating disembodied heads.

Meanwhile, back in the 20th century, Liz and Abe do their best to help their comrade get back to his own time, as well as quelling the demons' next attempt to break free. 

There's a complicated backstory about how a samurai used the sword to banish the demons in order to save his lord's daughter from the creatures. Though the ghosts of these mortals play a part in the overall narrative, they aren't vital to the story, though the backstory does illustrate some of the more counter-intuitive aspects of the medieval Japanese code of honor.

Eventually, the two parallel plotlines converge to bring about the demons' defeat and Hellboy's return to his own era. This means that everything in between the beginning and ending proves very episodic in nature. I certainly enjoyed Hellboy's jousts with the various Japanese critters, and there's a good line in which Abe saves Liz from drowning with his uuique physiology, prompting her response, "You mean I was breathing your burps?" But no viewer will exhaust himself trying to follow the extremely diagrammatic plot. My largest complaint is that the story builds up Thunder and Lightning to be the baddest of the Big Bads in Japanese mythology, and their climactic attack is rather underwhelming.

THE BLADE MASTER (1983)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

As cheap and sloppy as ATOR THE FIGHTING EAGLE was, one can probably enjoy it in an indulgent frame of mind, and I've the impression that, in addition to being a theatrical success in its time, it's become known as one of the more memorable Italian cheese-fests of the 1980s, in part due to being riffed by Mystery Science Theater.

MST3K riffed the sequel BLADE MASTER as well, but the script for this one-- credited to director Joe D'Amato-- was so formless that even a spoof couldn't make it interesting. D'Amato commented online that he didn't really have a script when he began the project, and indeed, BLADE seems mostly like a stitched-together assemblage of scenes. I imagine the director telling the actors to waltz around in various settings while he tried to figure out the next scene.

The opening seems to imply that we may not be in a sword-and-sorcery neverland this time, but in some post-apocalyptic era in which people dress like ancient barbarians. Isolated scientist Akronos discovers a "geometric nucleus" and wants it protected from a horde of approaching bandits who may misuse the device's power with cataclysmic results. Akronos sends his daughter Mila (Lisa Foster) to appeal to all-round good-guy Ator (Miles O'Keeffe) to protect the nucleus project from the bandits. Oddly, though there's a line that seems to tie this Ator to the one from the previous film-- at least he's said to have married his love Sunya-- Sunya is never seen and the viewer has no idea what Ator's been doing since his last adventure. He does have a new mentor with the risible name of "Thong." The latter is apparently teaching Ator martial arts because the guy's played by an Asian, but if so Thong's not a great teacher, because the barbarian's swordplay looks as bad as it did in the first film.

And after that? Well, lots more episodic stuff happens, occasionally coming back to the menace of the bandits and their nasty leader Zor. Fights with a tribe of cannibals and a giant snake don't prove nearly as entertaining as they sound. Eventually, after Zor is defeated, the scientist lets the device be destroyed somewhere and it creates a nuclear explosion.

There's no romance subplot this time to make either hero or heroine somewhat palatable, and it's just as well, because Foster is just as bad at emoting as O'Keeffe. The most amusing thing about BLADE is that D'Amato was apparently enjoined to work in some scenes from a separate film about cave-people-- indeed, the title MST3K uses for its spoof is CAVE DWELLERS-- and these are so incredibly out of place with the sword-and-sorcery look of everything else that they're a little diverting-- but only a little.

RADAR PATROL VS. SPY KING (1949)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

In between Kirk Alyn's two Superman serials he made two G-man serials for Republic.  In both serials, although the majority of the narratives are naturalistically oriented, there's just enough metaphenomenal content to edge them into the domain of "the uncanny."

Of the two, there's less to say about RADAR, which was the second of these two 1949 Alyn serials, so I'll start with that one.  Four years after the end of WWII, U.S. agent Chris Calvert (Alyn) is busy overseeing the construction of an up-to-date radar defense project, leaving the technical side to a rare (for serials) female scientist, Joan Hughes (Jean Dean).  The evil "Spy King" Baroda (John Merton) is out to sabotage the project, creating his own "counter-radar" among other stratagems.  Baroda doesn't seem to be employed by any country in particular to commit these acts of sabotage, and some of his dialogue with female accomplice Nitra (Eve Whitney) implied to me that he was doing it all "on spec," to impress potential employers.

John Stanley's CREATURE FEATURES GUIDE claims that Baroda's arsenal includes a nifty sounding "electro annihilator," but if it's in there I must've blinked and missed it.  I only noticed two "outre devices" that went beyond the usual mundane guns-and-fists battles.  The first is the aforementioned "counter radar," which is a marginal SF-notion, while the other involves a clever sort of gas-trap.  In the serial's best scene, Nitra conceals the gas-gadget in a hollowed-out fake encyclopedia and gives it away to Joan as a promotional item.  None of the heroes perish from this or any other stratagem by the villains, and most of the cliffhanger-resolutions are pretty weak tea. 

HONOR ROLL #160

 It's rhyme time with JEAN DEAN!

Meet LISA FOSTER, the only actor so bad with a sword that she made Miles O'Keeffe look good.

Another "good monster" heard from in HELLBOY.

KRISTANNA LOKEN was smart enough not to become the permanent face of Bloodrayne.

Do not go pass Go, PATRICK MALAHIDE and go directly to Fortress-- and not even the first one, but Fortress 2.

FERNANDO OTES had the dubious honor of introducing the movie world to the genuine Santo, who then got all the sequels while Otes ended up playing "Baron Brakola."

DOCTOR STRANGE (2016)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

I didn't have much to say about the MCU's DOCTOR STRANGE when it first appeared in 2016, and nothing much has changed. Having seen how little magic and mystery appeared in the two THOR films that preceded STRANGE, I suspected that the Feige-verse would be incapable of doing justice to the Master of the Mystic Arts, and my recent re-viewing did nothing to change that opinion.

I probably could have put up with the way the hero's origin is shoehorned into the "Infinity War" matrix and the increasing sameness of the MCU's mix of hyperkinetic action set-pieces with predictable bits of humor, if I thought there had been an honest attempt to capture the vibe of the classic Lee-Ditko stories. What the film needed was an authorial/directorial appreciation that could have channeled that subdued, ethereal sense of mystery, even if there's little chance anyone could have come up with a cinematic analogue to Ditko's graphics. What the film needed was Sax Rohmer; what it got was the usual Michael Bay bombast.

So there's a cadre of good magicians, led by the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who serve to protect Earth from extradimensional menaces. One of their number, Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelson), has formed such an antipathy for mortality-- which he calls "time"-- that he believes the Earth would be better off if it was absorbed into the dimension of the evil conqueror Dormammu. The good magicians aren't able to stop Kaecilius from stealing the pages of a magic book for the summoning of Dormammu, despite being able to manifest a level of magical FX with all the charm of Christopher Nolan's INCEPTION. Kaecilius escapes, but for some reason I didn't catch, he's not able to perform his ritual for quite a while.

Enter Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch). In a faithful but still mediocre recreation of the hero's origin, Strange is an arrogant (though not particularly money-hungry) neurosurgeon. Former girlfriend Christine, also a doctor, busts his balls for not being a one-dimensional altruist like she is. As in the comics-origin, a car accident robs Strange of the neural control he needs for his advanced surgical techniques, but he hopes to find a way to restore his abilities by learning the energy-manipulation techniques of the Ancient One. Despite her initial reluctance to teach the former doctor-- who often feels like a less horndog version of Tony Stark-- she and her foremost student Mordo spend weeks, if not months, training Strange in magic. 

Conveniently enough, Strange reaches the apogee of his training when Kaecilius is ready to strike, weakening the good magicians' veil of protection by annihilating one of their refuges. Following a mystical duel between Strange and Kaecilius, Kaecilius gives the hero his philosophy. The villain's maunderings about "time" exist so that the script can turn things around at the climax, when Strange foils Dormammu and his "timeless" dimension by casting a time-spell on the overlord. It's frustrating, because there could be the seeds for a stimulating "dueling concepts" in these contrasts, but in STRANGE they function just to wrap things up quickly. I suspect that this emphasis on time also ties in to Strange's function as a sort of "time-oracle" in AVENGERS ENDGAME.

Despite the predictable feel of everything Strange is given to do, Benedict Cumberbatch invests even the bad humor and the Tony Stark-isms with a sense of gravitas. All of the other actors put in their time without much distinction, particularly the horribly overrated Benedict Wong, playing the good sorcerer Wong. The script tells us that he, not Stephen Strange, is the Sorcerer Supreme of the Earth-realm, but this boils down to nothing more than virtue signaling, since his character does nothing to justify his lofty position. When the STRANGE project was first announced, some fans wanted to "race-bend" the hero so that he became Asian. I don't know precisely why the MCU chose not to do so. Yet I suspect that had they done so, the script would not have been able to harp on the sins of a non-white hero as gleefully as the writer of STRANGE does with its Caucasian crusader.

SECRET AGENT FIREBALL (1965)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

This early Eurospy entry, the first featuring a hero sometimes dubbed "Bob Fleming" (Richard Harrison), and was followed by one sequel, KILLERS ARE CHALLENGED. As is often the case, the first entry in the series may be a little on the small-budget size, and the sequel gets a little more money for developing oddball spy-devices. FIREBALL, however, doesn't get anything but a pipe from which a killer can shoot tiny darts to kill a target.

Most of the movie is routine spy-stuff, as Fleming jaunts about Europe, tracking a microfilm filled with science-secrets left behind by the scientists, assassinated by Russian agents. (Oddly, that same year the Bond films started playing down Russian villainy by playing up the apolitical menace of SPECTRE in THUNDERBALL-- whose name FIREBALL probably borrows from.) 

There's nothing either fiery or thunderous about this routine spy-thriller as directed by Luciano Martino, who distinguishes himself with a half-dozen strong giallo films later. FIREBALL merely ticks off all the expected categories-- car chases, short fights, and Euro-babes, the latter played by good girl Dominique Broschero and bad girl Wandisa Guida. Harrison is OK as the suave Bondian hero but like many other Eurospies the writers can't be bothered to think up a half-decent villain (Professor G? Was there a guy with that name in the English dub?)

This one is purely of historical interest, nothing more.

ALIEN OUTLAW (1985)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphyscial*

Director Phil Smoot and B-western star Lash LaRue should have quit collaborating after producing the mildly entertaining horror-thriller THE DARK POWER. I don't know if ALIEN OUTLAW made less money than POWER, but for whatever reason, Smoot directed no more feature films (though he remained involved in film production), and LaRue only made three more movies in marginal roles.

The film provides a mild salute to the long-vanished days of Hollywood's B-westerns, both through LaRue's presence and that of Sunset Carson, another toiler in the oater category. But the movie's "high concept" is that a much younger heir to the western tradition, trick-shooter Jesse Jamison (Kari Anderson), gets challenged to a duel by an "alien outlaw." Why does some alien outlaw want to shoot it out with Jesse? The world will never know, for the script is utterly uninterested in developing the ET's motives, even to the extent one sees in PREDATOR (surprisingly, not on screens until two years later).

Unfortunately, what the script is interested in doing is burning up time until the concluding duel, and it does so by having Jesse run into a lot of "funny" characters. I'm going to guess that a lot of these people were unpaid amateurs, because they overacted so horribly, I almost missed the films of Ted V, Mikels. At least when Mikels would turn loose rank amateurs upon filmdom, they were confined to reciting their lines very flatly and dully, with no attempts to "act." Surprisingly, Anderson-- the heroine, whom one might expect to put herself out there-- barely projects any character at all.

OUTLAW is a film of just two curiosity-points: the presence of two B-western actors-- who predictably are better actors here than they were in their old flicks-- and the film's anticipation of PREDATOR.

SHAOLIN VS. EVIL DEAD (2004), SHAOLIN VS. EVIL DEAD: ULTIMATE POWER (2006)

 

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: (1) *poor, *(2) *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical, psychological*

It should go without saying that these films lack any similarity to either the style or content of Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" films. The first film at least seems to be a loosey-goosey emulation of the successful 1980s "Mister Vampire" franchise. In place of a modern-day magician-hero, we have archaic Taoist (Buddhist?) priest Pak, played by the always appealing Gordon Liu. Pak is out to conquer the zombie legions of Zhao (Man Kit Cheung), a former fellow acolyte of Pak's order. Pak is accompanied by a younger priest, Hak (Terry Fan of STORY OF RICKY), and an annoying kid. Both are played for bad humor but at least the kid is gone in the sequel.

The first film doesn't give much background to the quarrel between Pak and Zhao, with the latter's motive sounding a bit like a Lex Luthor grudge ("you deprived me of my proper position in the order!") Hak gets a little more character development in that he falls for Zhao's student in Taoist kung fu, Grace (Shannon Yoh), and though the romance-plot is nothing special anything looks good next to the crappy humor. There's also no explanation as to why Pak keeps a small horde of hopping vampires around as a retinue of sorts. If he sought to pit his vampires against Zhao's zombies, that might have been worth watching, but neither type of "evil dead" plays a major role in the story. The film terminates without a clear climax, forcing the viewer to seek solace in the sequel.

Surprisingly, the sequel-- over half of which is a prequel-- is a good basic melodrama, with hardly any lame humor at all. 

In the prequel section, the audience learns much more about the backstories of Pak and Zhao (played of course by younger actors in the flashbacks). Zhao is conceived by two Taoist priests, father Dragon and mother Phoenix, both of whom are poisoned by contact with "evil dead." Phoenix is pregnant with Zhao at the time, and though a doctor tells her to abort to save herself, she brings Zhao to term and perishes. Dragon, master of a Taoist monastery, manages to keep the poison in his body under control, while at the same time trying to raise Zhao as a good monk. However, Pak joins the monkish ranks as well, and Dragon is forced to elevate Pak above his son. This turns Zhao to the Dark Side, which brings him up to the point of the modern-day story.

Though I'm reasonably sure no one in the first film mentioned magic swords, now we find out that two such weapons are vital to Zhao's ascension to demon-hood. Zhao has a really cool moment during a visit to the "Sword Graveyard," where he masters dozens of illusory swords blocking his way. (Yes, they're CGI, but they look damn good.) Cheung and Liu of course play their roles again, though Liu isn't in it much this time. Grace turns against her evil mentor, and he responds by making her one of his zombie minions, though Pak and Hak are able to win her back from the abyss. The upsurge of the "evil dead" becomes so pervasive that Zhao ends up redeeming himself by teaming with Pak to end the threat, allowing the romance of Hak and Grace to thrive in the end. Even though the FX do more heavy lifting than the stars, ULTIMATE POWER outshines the previous entry in terms of good basic entertainment.

VAMPIRE IN VEGAS (2009)

 

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

I wasn't expecting much of a Jim Wynorski film with a title like VAMPIRE IN VEGAS. Even if he'd been playing the idea of a "Vegas vampire" for laughs, Wynorski is extremely variable in terms of producing even basic B-movie entertainment. For instance, I liked his DEATHSTALKER sequel, but his comedic take on the SWAMP THING sequel  was tedious in the extreme. A look of the imdb credits for VEGAS' writer also wasn't encouraging, given that Nicholas Davidoff was mostly a camera guy who wrote just one other feature film, one of the various ANACONDA sequels.

Yet VEGAS is not played for laughs, even though it does feature a lot of clumsy humor, mostly centered around various dopey supporting characters (particularly a pair of Vegas cops who seem like comedians trying out failed schticks). But there's the germ of a decent idea set forth in VEGAS' opening moments, when king-vampire Sylvian (Tody Todd) relates his reasons for taking up residence in Nevada's Sin City: because it's a "city that never sleeps." Sylvian is a three-hundred-year old Black vampire (who presumably took his name from "Transylvania") who's been trying for years to find a scientific way to nullify the vulnerability he and his kindred have to sunlight, so that they can operate in daylight hours without loss of power. He's already done pretty well for himself in Vegas, managing to mount a campaign to become Nevada's governor despite his only appearing at night. But Sylvian knows that he can't fulfill his reign in the wee hours alone, so he works with an experimental scientist (Delia Sheppard) to concoct a serum that will act like SPF 30.

Now, I'm not going to say that Davidoff's script is any great wonder. He's not very consistent about his vampire lore or the various characters' motivations. However, a lot of B-flicks can barely manage to bring together even two major plot-threads. One of the threads I've mentioned: two Vegas cops are drawn into investigating the immolations of Sylvian's test subjects. The other is a romantic entanglement between two crazy young kids in love, Jason (Edward Spivak) and Rachel (Sonya Joy Sims). Jason and Rachel are due to be married soon, but Jason's buds hijack him for a bachelor party in Vegas. Rachel is encouraged to follow Jason to check on things, and both crazy kids get pulled into a sex club run by Sylvian's minions. In no time, both Jason and Rachel also become test subjects for the scientist's experiments. Sylvian gets his immunity serum, and for good measure tries to turn good-hearted Rachel to the Dark Side. However, Jason's able to drink Sylvian's blood and call upon his inner vampire, resulting in a Battle of Old Blood and Young Blood.

VEGAS is unquestionably cheaply made, and for many viewers that would doom it, even if any of the humorous bits had been funny. However, Wynorski does keep a certain level of lively action going, particularly thanks to the vampire henchpeople. (Frequent Wynorski player Melissa Braselle gets most of the action scenes.) Tony Todd is unquestionably the best actor in the room, but Spivak and Sims give him decent support, taking away somewhat from the actors playing the doofy cops.

FORTRESS (1992)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Though I won't say writer-director Stuart Gordon never made a dull film, he oversaw enough high-energy movies that I've come to expect at the very least a decent thrill-ride.

FORTRESS is a prison movie that happens to be set in the near future of 2017, when the government has become so oppressive as to restrict all couples to bearing just one child. An ex-military married couple, John Brennick (Christopher Lambert) and Karen (Loryn Locklin), lost a previous child, but they want another chance. Thus Karen becomes pregnant a second time, and the two of them attempt to cross into Canada to escape the harsh U.S. law. Both of them are caught and sentenced to long sentences in a maximum security prison "fortress." Like many such future-prisons, they're imagined as being run by private corporations with no government oversight, and the Fortress is managed by an inevitably corrupt company known as Men-Tel. Despite the company's name, its employees, from the guards to Warden  Poe (Kurtwood Smith), control the prisoners not through their minds but through their stomachs. Devices called "intestinators" are implanted in the prisoner's intestinal tracts, and when computerized monitors, under the command of a central computer called "Zed," detect bad behavior, the prisoners experience wrenching stomach pains.

Brennick and Karen are inevitably separated into different sections of the prison, so for most of the film the audience follows Brennick as he, "the new fish," makes friends and enemies among the populace. His fighting skill and fierce morality soon make his a charismatic figure to the other prisoners, thus bringing upon him the wrath of Poe. However, Poe's interest turns from Brennick to his wife, as he invites her to become his "companion." Karen accepts to save Brennick's life. Thn she learns that when her child is born, it will be appropriated by Men-Tel and turned into one of a set of experimental cyborg soldiers. Thus Karen conspires with her husband and his friends to pull off a Great Escape.

The danger to the couple and their baby naturally informs the main conflict, and the revelation that the quirky Poe is himself a company cyborg further stokes the heroes' need to escape. There are a number of solid action-scenes in FORTRESS, though Gordon has done better in his high-octane career. Lambert once more executes his standard heroic persona of a terse, driven man of action.

HONOR ROLL #159

 KURTWOOD SMITH says, "I'm gonna put my fortress up your ass!"

How could TONY TODD be a proper vampire in Vegas without having met Dan Tanna?

Medieval Shaolin shenanigans with SHANNON YOH.

KARI ANDERSON will never get on the list of great heroines, the more so because her alien-bashing deeds get largely overshadowed by old-timers like Lash LaRue and Sunset Carson.

DOMINIQUE BROSCHERO tries to put out the torch of a fireball secret agent.

It wasn't strange that BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH was the best thing about Doctor Strange.

BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD (2010)

 

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

In my review of the original comic-book continuity of UNDER THE RED HOOD-- the storyline that returned Second Robin Jason Todd to the ranks of the living-- I observed that writer Judd Winick produced a rambling script with a lot of extraneous characters. But I credit Winick with producing a much more stripped-down version of his own story for the 2010 animated adaptation.

The script keeps the original famous/infamous scenario in which Jason is beaten to death by the Joker's crowbar. Gone, perhaps inevitably, is the idea that Jason was revived by some obscure cosmic phenomenon called "Hypertime," only to be discovered afterward by Batman's foes Ra's Al Ghul and his daughter Talia. This time, Winick devises a new situation in which Ra's has some scheme he doesn't want Batman messing with, so the mastermind hires Joker to run interference. After Second Robin's brutal slaughter, Ra's secretly steals the body of Jason and uses one of the Lazarus Pits to revive the dead adolescent. Jason does come back to life, but goes mad and runs off, eluding even the great resources of The Demon. 

When Jason comes back, he dons a variant of an identity once sported by the Joker before his clown-ification, as part of a long-con strategy to lure the Clown Prince of Crime into his grasp. But Red Hood's greater strategy is to become a player on the Gotham crime scene as a way of rejecting everything Batman taught him in his role as Robin. He doesn't care about being a crime-lord; he just wants to kill criminals while flouting Batman's ethos. Winick also comes up with a novel way to dovetail Red Hood's war on Gotham's major crime-lord Black Mask with his plans to gain revenge on Joker. 

Despite assorted changes to the overall plot, Winick does a fine job of translating the psychological conflict between Red Hood and his mentor in the big climax, ending in Red Hood's escape-- but as yet, no more major animated incarnations. The DTV film's best moment is not from the segment with Jason as Red Hood though, but in an original-to-the-video scene in which we see Batman and Second Robin fighting the Riddler. It catches much of the appeal of the Golden Age Batman and Robin shenanigans, but with a slight undercurrent of dark irony. 

CONQUEST (1983)

 

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Lucio Fulci's attempt to ride the barbarian wave created by the 1982 CONAN THE BARBARIAN might not be among the most entertaining sword-and-sorcery flicks, but one must admit that it doesn't strongly resemble anything in the genre before or since.

Roughly ninety percent of the film looks for all the world like it's going to be a bildungsroman, the story of a young man's maturation and ascension to full adulthood. Handsome young Ilias (Andrea Occhipinti) is first seen in his own native land as the hero's father bids him farewell. For unclear reasons, everyone believes that Ilias is supposed to go forth and defeat some unspecified evil in the world beyond, and to that end Ilias's father presents the youth with a magical bow, as well as presenting a legend about how the bow once called down supernatural powers. A little after Ilias departs, Fulci's camera segues to another barren land, where a small tribe (never seen again) is suffering the tyrannies of Ocron, a sorceress garbed only in a golden metallic mask. and of her army of werewolves. Ocron has a premonitory dream about being slain by an energy-arrow wielded by a poorly seen assailant, so she has every reason to hunt down this new threat.

Almost as soon as Ilias arrives in the neighboring land, he's set upon by several savages. Some of them he kills with his arrows, but as he's not mastered the bow's energy powers yet (wouldn't it have been better to do that BEFORE leaving?), he has to flee when he's out of regular arrows. The savages capture him, but Ilias is saved when a powerful, somewhat older warrior named Mace (Jorge Rivero) shows up, driving off the savages with a magic bull-roarer. The two hang out, and the more experienced Mace takes him on a visit to a friendly tribe, largely for the purpose of wenching. Ilias welcomes this chance to celebrate his youth.

But if the hero's temporarily forgotten his noble mission, Ocron hasn't forgotten her deadly vision. She sends soldiers to the tribe's caves and almost succeeds in kidnapping Ilias. However, Mace comes to the youth's defense and routs the soldiers. Ilias wants to journey to Ocron's land and attack her, but Mace, being a practical type, declines to join him. 

Just as the point when the two are about to part on their separate courses, Ocron's soldiers attack again, pinning the duo down with a hail of arrows. When the two men run, Ilias is wounded by an arrow whose poison makes him deathly ill. Mace leaves his friend in a hiding place and goes looking for healing herbs. Meanwhile Ocron summons a chameleon-demon who shows up at the hiding-spot disguised as Mace. But by sheer luck the real Mace returns in time to defeat his doppelganger and to apply the herbs that help Ilias recover.

Ilias, perhaps discouraged by his brush with death, plans to use his boat to go back home. After he leaves, Mace is attacked by some of Ocron's monsters. Ilias has some intuition about his friend's peril and returns, but when he takes arms against this sea of new enemies, Ilias suddenly has full mastery of the bow's power, which include his being able to send forth an energy-arrow that splits into multiples to kill multiple foes (easily the neatest part of the movie). Ilias isn't able to prevent the creatures from hurling Mace, bound to a cross, into the sea. However, a friendly dolphin gnaws away the older hero's bonds, so that he's able to return to shore. Mace agrees to fight Ocron.

At this point, any pretense to bildungsroman goes out the window. Ilias is captured and hauled to Ocron's lair. Mace pursues, but finds that, unlike thousands of other villains, Ocron didn't wait for her captive to be rescued; she has Ilias killed and beheaded right away. Nevertheless, Mace gets hold of the magic bow and ensures that the evil sorceress still meets her predestined end.

While there are any number of adventure-stories wherein an older hero takes a young guy under his wing, only to see him slain, CONQUEST is the only one I know that really sets up the young hero as the likely focus of the adventure and then undercuts expectations by killing him. All that said, though, all of the characters are static even according to the dynamics of this genre, and Mace's sardonic remarks don't serve to make him a compelling hero. Once it was all over, I found myself a little curious as to why someone named the film CONQUEST, since the word doesn't really connote anything in the plot as such. Maybe killing the young hero was for Fulci a "conquest" of viewer expectations-- though it's a shame, because Occhipinti is the only actor who projects any strong emotion.

THE WORLD OF THE VAMPIRES (1961)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

About a year before Miguel Morayta directed the first of his vampire flicks, Alfonso Corona Blake got into theaters first with his equally individualistic take on vampire mythology. That said, WORLD OF THE VAMPIRES is more strongly derived from the Universal revisions of the Bram Stoker original, and Blake's not quite as vivid a stylist as Morayta, a lack also evident in the director's second and last vamp-film, SANTO VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN.

In his name and attire Count Sergio Subotai echoes the Universal version of the master vampire, though the actor playing him, Guillermo (Bill?) Murray, is more the super-handsome bloodsucker one might expect to find in the John Badham DRACULA. As soon as Subotai walks into a party being thrown in a Mexican villa by European expatriate Colman, both of Colman's nieces, Mina and Lucy-- I mean, Martha and Leonor-- instantly want to get to know him better. 

Subotai, however, has come to Colman's home to exact vengeance. The vamp nurtures an old family grudge, because Colman's ancestors almost wiped out the Subotai clan of vampires in Europe. It's not clear from Subotai's monologues how old he is. But if he descends from a family of bloodsuckers, then it would seem that his people are able to propagate the old fashioned way, as well as by transforming the living into the undead. Subotai plans to avenge his ancestors by vampirizing the old fellow's nieces and letting Colman see their degradation before he Colman perishes.

By chance, though, Colman's future savior also attends the party. The script is not clear on the profession of Rodolfo Sabre; all the viewer knows is that he has esoteric knowledge of folk music. Rodolfo plays a certain tune for the guests, telling them that in older times the melody repelled vampires, but he evinces no actual belief in vampires. When Subotai reacts to the music as Bela Lugosi reacted to a mirror, Rodolfo doesn't immediately tick to the count's true nature. Similarly, despite all the party-talk about vampires, Martha says nothing to anyone when she sees that Subotai casts no reflection in a big mirror.

Leonor, though, is totally enthralled by the count. She meets him alone, and he instantly makes her his slave. Later he makes her into an undead in a quasi-Aztec ceremony, having one of his many slaves knife Leonor to death. Leonor is then transformed into Subotai's "inside woman," and when Rodolfo seems to be getting too close to the truth, she visits him in his sleep and fangs him. Yet Rodolfo's will to oppose Subotai seems uncompromised, and the only result of the vamp-bite seems to be-- if I understood the allusions-- that the musicologist grows hair on the back of his hands.

Subotai captures both Colman and Martha, planning to turn the second niece as well. Rodolfo beats the hell out of the count's hunchbacked servant-- perhaps on loan from a FRANKENSTEIN flick?-- and invades Subotai's lair. There's some minor use of the anti-vampire music against the count's fanged groupies, but the main clash is just as a straight-up fistfight between the music master and the tuxedoed terror. (This seems to indicate another divergence from vamp-lore: Subotai seems no stronger than an ordinary man.) Subotai is destroyed, Martha-Mina is saved but Leonor-Lucy is not, and the film ends without even having suggested a normative romance between Rodolfo and Martha. 

 

SCORCHING SUN, FIERCE WIND, WILD FIRE (1977)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

This cheap Taiwanese production-- garnished with a half-dozen HK "names"-- is a textbook example of a flick that's just making stuff up as it goes along. It's a shame, because its star Angela Mao was still in her prime. SUN would have been a much brighter film had the creators built up her character of masked freedom-fighter Violet, instead of spending so much time on subsidiary characters like that of her ally Tien Peng, her main foe Chang Yi and two comic relief characters, Dorian Tan and Lo Lieh. 

Supposedly the film takes place in 1920s China, prior to the Communist reign, but most of the film takes place out in rural areas, and almost no one wears clothes congruent with 20th-century fashions. Then one suddenly sees soldiers wearing China-Republic uniforms, or what's supposed to pass as a 1920s automobile, and one is reminded. However, for all that the time-period matters to the rambling narrative, it might as well be happening back in the usual amorphous medieval era common to so many Hong Kong chopsockies.

Violet's career as a masked avenger comes about because her father is Warlord Tung, who's doing a lot of evil things to the people and must be stopped. So like Zorro before her, Violet sets up an underground resistance while remaining close to her father's operations in order to foil his misdeeds. Because the story is so unfocused, there's no real sense of any particular goal Violet seeks to accomplish, much less any sense of conflict about defying her father. The warlord's enforcer becomes the de facto force to be reckoned with, and after the warlord perishes-- not directly because of anything Violet does-- the enforcer is defeated by Violet and the Tien Peng character in one of those two-against-one battles that's supposed to show how badass the villain is.

The "mask" Violet wears is one of those conical hats whose brim is low enough to hide the face, and she doesn't wear it that often. Since the heroine spends so much time fighting without the mask, I debated as to whether her attire really rose to the level of an uncanny outfit. But I decided in the affirmative, and besides, as the lobby card above shows, there's a moment when one of her allies gets trapped in a room with closing spiked walls, which definitely urges the film into the domain of the uncanny. (The peculiar German title, "Gorilla with the Steel Claw," has nothing to do with anything under the SUN.)

Only Mao's fights are particularly memorable, and then only because of her performing charisma. But though Mao made a few other films with uncanny aspects, SUN is probably the only one in which her character is the "costumed crusader" type of superhero.

KNIGHT RIDER 2000 (1991)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

The original 1982-86 KNIGHT RIDER was in some ways the perfect "bland TV superhero." His adventures with the intelligent talking car KITT never delved into controversial topics, and so was perfect for kids of the time, possibly even more so than THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN, which more often showed the hero dating and maybe even about to have sex. David Hasselhoff played main (human) character Michael Knight as a breezy, "hail fellow well met" extrovert, while his automated ally projected an acerbic and finicky air through the offices of voice-actor William Daniels. The combination of "paired opposites" remained the show's strongest selling point. For four years Michael and KITT tooled around the country, solving crimes and protecting innocents on the behalf of a philanthropic foundation headed by genial overseer Devon (Edward Mulhare).

Roughly five years later, a new production company-- apparently not allied with the show's originator Glen Larson-- floated this pilot for a more futuristic pilot, set nine years from the time of the movie. The only "science fiction" aspect of this near-future was sociological, for in 2000 handguns are banned for ordinary citizens while criminals have no problem getting them (which itself sounds like a dystopia from Fox News). 

Though Michael Knight retired from the Foundation years ago, for reasons the script never specifies, Devon is still in there pitching for a new/old solution to burgeoning crime: the "Knight 4000," a revved up version of the old KITT model. The actual components of KITT were disassembled and sold off to other vendors. Devon coaxes Michael out of retirement to drive the 4000, but when Michael returns, he's aghast that his old driving-buddy has been mistreated (though apparently Michael wasn't concerned enough to keep in contact with Devon over the years). Knight manages to re-acquire all of the components of KITT and bring back the sardonic computer-intelligence to inhabit the 4000-- except for just one chip.

That chip, as it happens, winds up in the brain of police officer Shawn McCormick (Susan Norman). McCormick was shot while trying to capture master crook Thomas Watts (Mitch Pileggi), but for some reason the surgeon who restored her to life used that missing chip to revitalize McCormick's brain. Eventually McCormick crosses paths with Michael and KITT and, after some initial sniping, the three of them join forces to bring down Watts and his cohorts.

The script and direction are competent, with an interesting conservative take on organized crime, and there's a little nostalgia value in seeing one last team-up between Hasselhoff and Daniels, a value not impaired by the intro of a "fifth wheel" (so to speak). But the subject matter is a little more serious than the light-hearted original series would have ever attempted, and the suture between old and new remains jagged at best.

CLASS OF 1999 (1990)

 

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

It's interesting to see how much CLASS OF 1999 channels the prosthetic-heavy FX seen in 1984's THE TERMINATOR. In one more year, TERMINATOR 2 would debut some of the most influential CGI ever to shake Hollywood's money coffers. 

I haven't seen director Mark L. Lester's 1982 cult-film CLASS OF 1984 in a while, so I don't know if there are any significant touchstones between that film and CLASS OF 1999, which is set nine years from the period of the film's actual release. But according to C. Courtney Joyner's script, nine years is enough for an institution named "MegaTech" to perfect "military robots" with all sorts of super-scientific tech beneath their human-appearing shells. More on them later.

Very few of the characters in 1999 seem to be aware of such automatons, possibly because society has allowed school gangs to get out of control. One such school is Kennedy High in downtown Seattle, where two major rival gangs, the Razorheads and the Blackhearts, continually attack one another and cause havoc for the people running the school. Though it's not clear why MegaTech isn't still turning out robots for military use, it's implied that the company is moving into a new venue by convincing Kennedy's principal (Malcolm McDowell) to employ robots as teachers able to defend themselves against unruly students. The leader of the project, Bob Forrest (Stacy Keach), maintains a laboratory through which he and his aides monitor the reactions of the robo-teachers as they begin their new jobs.

While all this drama is heating up, Joyner introduces a viewpoint character: former Blackheart gang-member Cody Culp (Bradley Gregg), who's just been released from juvie prison. Cody wants nothing to do with his old gang-life, but his old gang may not agree with his POV. Cody's family is also compromised by their addiction to the drugs peddled by the gangs. On the lighter side, he begins chatting up Christie, a cute girl at school, though there's a downside in that she's the principal's daughter.

It takes Cody a little while to realize that there's something different about Kennedy's three new teachers: Connors (Pam Grier), Hardin (John P. Ryan), and Bryles (Patrick Kilpatrick). Connors and Hardin are able to defend themselves against any attack by any number of gang-punks, but this by itself doesn't get Cody's attention. However, Coach Bryles not only bullies Cody under the pretense of physical education, he also kills a student who draws a gun on him. The principal promotes the "self-defense" rationale for Bryles' crime, but what ends up happening is that all three robots begin to get the idea that they can start treating the students like enemy combatants. After the robots have pulled off several covert murders, Cody figures out the robots' program, and he rallies his old gang to take out the mechanisms in a rousing in-school battle-climax.

There aren't any great depths to this exploitation favorite. Lester and Joyner get a lot of mileage out of the antipathy between students and teachers, with the robots' counter-attack coming off as far more repressive than the activities of the young reprobates. It's just as well that the filmmakers didn't attempt any pretentiousness along the lines of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. That presumption would have shown the creators moving outside the limitations of their own "class."

HONOR ROLL #158

 "Roll call-- BRADLEY GREGG? Did he skip class again? Seems the 1999th time!"

If they'd brought back a futuristic version of Knight Rider, how could DAVID HASSELHOFF have brought us the wonder that was Baywatch?

HILDA LIU assisted Angela Mao in dealing with wildfires and fierce winds and all that junk.

Before there was the gross Bill Murray, there was the grotesque GUILLERMO MURRAY from south of the border.

ANDREA OCCHIPINTI was more conquered than conqueror in CONQUEST.

What lies under THE RED HOOD? The usual daddy issues...

DARKMAN III: DIE DARKMAN DIE (1996)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

Bradford May directs Darkman in his last feature, but this time the hero gets to go out with a much better script than he got from installment two. Michael Colleary and Mike Werb, who also worked on the script for the 2001 LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER, arguably give the hero his best outing in terms of both a better villain and a superior dramatic situation.

However much time has passed since DARKMAN II, the gangs in the unnamed city have come to fear the disfigured crusader (again Arnold Vosloo) who preys upon their kind. But one crime-boss, Peter Rooker (Jeff Fahey), sees a chance for profit. Having been informed that Darkman possesses freakish super-strength, Rooker wants to create more super-strong men to serve as his enforcers so that he can dominate the crime-world. Rooker is so obsessed with this aim that he pays no attention to his wife Angela and his kindergarten-age daughter, both of whom are innocent of Rooker's true nature.

A woman who calls herself Doctor Bridget Thorne finds her way to Darkman's hideout. She tells him that she was the ER surgeon who severed his nerve endings to save him the pain of his burns, and when Darkman is less than impressed with this accomplishment, she offers to help him perfect the perfect, non-degradable artificial skin the hero desires. The temptation wins Darkman over.

But it's a mistake, for Bridget originally "saved" Darkman with the hope of experimenting on him, and now she has the chance. Further, Rooker is her backer and she is his mistress, which fills in the blanks as to why a crime-boss thought that power-duplication could be in his wheelhouse. Darkman is deeply betrayed, given that he hasn't trusted anyone in a long time, but though Bridget does manage to make new super-henchmen, the hero escapes her clutches.

Darkman decides to take down Rooker in his usual manner, using the subterfuge of disguise to infiltrate the mastermind's world. However, when he masquerades as Rooker and enters his home to seek out missing data, Darkman is forced to sympathize with the plight of Angela and her little girl. This moral nature keeps Darkman from being a simple monster like his "Phantom of the Opera" model, and adds more dramatic heft to the hero's struggle against the villain. In the end, after some above-average fight-scenes, the crusader has a lively battle with Rooker, now dosed up on strength-serum, and the battle ends with a grotesque fate for the villain. A coda establishes that although Angela does reach out to Darkman, seeking to know his nature, he's aware that his deformity repels her, and he ends his saga by returning to his lonely vigil.