PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological*
Probably the most singular thing about these two Full Moon features, shot back to back in Romania with largely the same main characters (though some actors changed from one movie to the other) is that the second flick shifts slightly from one "monster" to another.
The film takes place in some Eastern European city, which seems counter-intuitive since the Good Scientist and the Good Scientist's Daughter want to sell their invention, a robot able to be directed through a mental link, to the United States. In this aim Good Scientist is opposed by his partner, Evil Scientist (Curt Lowens), who wants to sell this relay-robot, the Mandroid, to Russia. Good Scientist and his Niceguy Assistant (who will become the second film's quasi-monster) have their way and summon an American scientist and his CIA protector to East Europe to look over Mandroid. Don't expect this "Sell the Robot to America" plot-thread to show up again.
In fact, though a fellow named Brian Ersgard directed both movies, the first of the two films is much duller than the second one. Thus MANDROID is an object lesson in how not to set up a premise, even when one is just doing DTV formula-flicks. Even scenes that suggest traumatic emotion come off as tedious. Evil Scientist has a "Doctor Doom" moment when he breaks into the lab to steal the Mandroid project, but gets exposed to some goop that makes his face all gnarly. He's spends the rest of both films either wearing either a full face-mask or disfigurement-makeup. Other characters have similar non-traumas, as when Niceguy Assistant gets turned into an invisible man and the Niceguy Scientist from America loses the control of his legs and has to trundle around in a wheelchair. (OK, that's too long to keep typing for those two: the first is Ben and the second is Wade, while Scientist's Daughter is Zanna. But the others I won't bother to name.) Ersgard mucks about with a lot of talking-head scenes until Evil Scientist manages to get control of the Mandroid robot. There's some low-budget shooting scenes, but the film is subcombative given that Wade just barely wins the battle by shorting out the robot. Evil Scientist seems to die but comes back in a coda (which alone contains some nudity), and nothing much happens to Ben until Film #2. Good Scientist doesn't appear in the second film so maybe he dies; I wasn't paying that much attention.
INVISIBLE then picks up the thread just where Ersgard left it. Wade is still confined to the wheelchair, but despite his grousing about his trauma, he manages to improve his ability to control the Mandroid. (I'm pretty sure he just gives up on whatever he'd been doing in America before MANDROID.) He's getting it on with Zanna, who's played by a new actress, possibly because her character had to perform a nude scene, albeit one filmed from behind. Ben begins to be more vocal about the non-perks of being an invisible wallflower, so Wade and Zanna devote a little time to talking about his condition and getting him made up like Claude Rains in THE INVISIBLE MAN.
Meanwhile, Evil Scientist still plots to get the Mandroid, though just to be more evil, he takes control of an asylum so that the loonies will serve him in such capacities as kidnapping hot young girls. Yet his big plot comes down to finking on the researchers by getting a local corrupt cop to persecute them. This leads to a handful of scenes in which Ben's invisibility comes in handy, allowing him to belt East European cops without getting shot. Wade and Zanna find a temporary fix for his Ben's condition, allowing the actor to walk around as "himself," sans bandages, though he's able to restore his invisibility when needed. The plot's no more coherent than in the first film, though there are more bursts of action here and there, though KNIGHT also falls into the subcombative category.
Both films are subpar formula. MANDROID's one note of distinction is that comics-legend Jack Kirby did some concept art for the flick in its early stages, presumably to help design the robo-thingie. But lead actress Jennifer Nash is a little sexier than MANDROID's Jane Caldwell, and there are a couple of other sexy women, so KNIGHT wins in the sexploitation department. Oh, and toward the end of KNIGHT Zanna calls Evil Scientist "uncle," though there was no suggestion in the first film that the two Mandroid-makers were related. If the writer meant to suggest a quasi-familial friendship between the two scientists, that too was not indicated in any way. Rather atypically, the lead female, though not the star of either film, gets to kill the villain.
Not quite the bottom of the Full Moon barrel, but close.
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