BLACK SCORPION (1995)

 

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

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

From glancing over the IMDB credits of director Jonathan Winfrey and writer Craig J. Nevius, it looks to me as if the BLACK SCORPION telefilm and its sequel are the standout accomplishments of their respective careers. That might seem like faint praise, but it's not meant that way. The two SCORPIONS are very nearly the only memorable entries out of the thirty telefilms that appeared under the Showtime ROGER CORMAN PRESENTS rubric-- and, perhaps more significantly, they do a better job of emulating the Tim Burton BATMAN films than did Joel Schumacher in the same year of 1995.

SCORPION's heroine Darcy Walker (Joan Severance) is first seen as a little girl whose cop-father (Rick Rossovich) reads her the classic story of The Scorpion and the Frog. Walker then leaves Darcy home alone (Darcy's mother is never mentioned) while he answers a call to pursue armed (and manically overacting) thieves. Walker wounds the two crooks and transports them to an ER, where they manage to take a doctor hostage. Walker recklessly shoots at the thugs and hits the doctor first, though managing to take out the crooks as well.

Fast-forward eighteen years. Darcy's become a Los Angeles cop like her father was-- and I say "was" because Walker got fired from the police for killing the doctor. Walker's become a commonplace security guard, though he still believes that, just as the scorpion of the fable had its own irreducible nature, his nature is that of a defender of the social order. Darcy, for her part, is a by-the-book cop, though, this being a Corman movie, she first appears in a hooker-getup as part of a sting operation to snare a murderous pimp. Darcy's snitch, a prostitute named Tender Lovin', claims that the lady-cop's handsome partner Michael (Bruce Abbott) has a thing for Darcy. The dedicated policewoman doesn't want romantic involvement (Electra complex, anyone?) and resents Michael's gallant gestures. Her feminist ire proves justified when Michael is too protective of her and messes up their operation. Later the brutal pimp will have the honor of being the first victim of a very different kind of sting.

After a brief introduction of the precinct where Darcy works, as well as her future ally the tech-head Argyle (Garrett Morris), Darcy goes to a bar to meet her security-officer dad-- but for the last time. Moments after Walker has complained about lawyers being the enemies of the police, in walks a lawyer from the D.A.'s office, who promptly shoots Walker dead. Later the attorney has no memory of committing the crime, and when Darcy tries to make him talk, her weaselly superior expels her from the force.

Around the same time, a heavily armored villain known as Breath-Taker assembles a motley crew of oddball crooks to commit some "random crimes" in L.A.-- though his real plan has something to do with establishing an anti-pollution enterprise in Smoggy L.A. Town. Though the crimes could be easy ways to acquire capital, their real purpose is to give a new heroine a concerted threat to battle.

For Darcy won't abandon her cop-nature simply because she's fired. She dons a skimpy black costume (complete with a hair-braid), somehow gets hold of boot-jets and a ring that shoots an electrical charge, and proceeds to fight crime as a costumed vigilante. You might think she would be the one to proclaim her scorpion-identity to the world, but it's her prostitute-snitch who dubs her Black Scorpion because the heroine's hair-braid reminds the witness of a scorpion's tail. (?) A little later, she confides in former car-thief Argyle and he becomes her tech-wizard, even constructing her a "Scorpion-mobile."

In the heroine's first bout with two of Breath Taker's minions-- a pair of flamboyant lady wrestlers-- Black Scorpion is defeated and almost captured by police. She gets away after wrestling around with former partner Michael, planting a kiss on his lips before knocking him out with a punch. Being a vigilante loosens up Darcy's erotic urges, and she pursues her former partner aggressively. However, like many an avenger before her, Darcy finds that her masked identity has overshadowed her real one, for Michael's obviously a little more taken with the Scorpion. Later in the story, Black Scorpion obliges Michael's slight SM tendencies by cornering him in his apartment and having a little rough trade with him.

Breath Taker announces to the city a rather incoherent plan: he threatens to release poison gas throughout the city, but he'll allow citizens to purchase gas masks. Darcy and Argyle figure out that his real scheme is to use a hypnotic gas, administered through the masks, to take control of the populace. It's still not a believable scheme, but at least it leads the good guys to Breath Taker's real identity: a cardio-pulmonary specialist with the epic-sounding name of "Noah Goddard." But it can't be Noah Goddard, because that (ta-da) is the doctor whom Darcy's father shot to death.

Of course Goddard isn't dead, though his lungs were so damaged by gunfire that he has to wear heavy armor and a mask to continue breathing. The script doesn't explain how or why Goddard faked his death, but it does bring us full circle by stating that he used his hypno-gas to compel an innocent attorney to shoot Darcy's dad-- little realizing that by so doing, he would create his own nemesis.

Though Nevius' script is riddled with holes, even leaving out the ones I've already mentioned, he delivers on many favorite tropes of the superhero genre. The vigilante who commits crimes to defeat criminals. The hero's regular identity, eclipsed by his/her own idealized image. The villain with a mysterious connection to the hero's father. Nevius also sticks assorted campy incidents into his script-- for instance, one of the lady wrestlers won't fight the heroine until her wrestler-partner "tags" her. But there's not really a "camp" vision here as there was in the better BATMAN '66 episodes, so all of these incidents are just comic relief.

All of the villains tend to overact while the heroic types underact: even mouthy Garrett Morris' character is relatively restrained as the tech-sidekick who joins the Scorpion's crusade-- well, Just Because. Severance handles the action scenes well enough for a performer who clearly was not a martial artist, and her height does make her fairly convincing, particularly in her domme-scene with Michael. Unfortunately for his character (though perhaps fortunately for the actor playing him), Michael learns Darcy's secret, which meant that he had no more utility as a character. Thus Michael vanishes from the Scorpion's world in both the 1997 sequel and the 2001 teleseries, though both Tender Lovin' and Argyle remain part of said cosmos.