STAR TREK: PICARD (SEASON TWO, 2022)

 

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

Well, the experiment cost about 8 hours I'll never get back, but after watching Season Two of PICARD, I confirmed for my own satisfaction that only the participation of showrunner Michael Chabon resulted in a superior storyline for Season One. To be sure, he claimed prior to his departure that he was heavily involved in the Season Two storyline, so that season would have remained bad had he stayed. But Alex Kurtzman and his fellow custodians of the TREK franchise are primarily responsible for plunging TREK back into the valley of mediocrity. And while the original NEXTGEN only occasionally resorted to banal political posturing, Season Two is far ghastlier in that respect than the worst of the old series-- though I suppose those who agree with Season Two's politics would feel differently.

There's no way I can give Season Two as witty a summation as someone did for STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, which some wag re-christened "Where Nomad Has Gone Before." Nevertheless, Two really is "Where 'Mirror Mirror' and 'City on the Edge of Forever' have gone before." Some time after the events of Season One, Picard and his New Zoo Crew-- more or les including the VOYAGER alum Seven of Nine-- investigate a space-anomaly. It turns out to be a new manifestation of the Borg, which starts to assimilate the ship. A sudden transition then brings Picard into contact with another old foe, the mercurial Q (John deLancie in what I assume is a finale-narrative for the character).

Q then introduces Picard and Crew to a changed version of their enlightened Federation: a space-empire founded primarily in xenophobia. Oddly, though Wikipedia reported some anti-Trump rhetoric from Patrick Stewart during promotion of Season One, Season Two seems to be where all the real ultraliberal cant ended up. There's no attempt to explore how the super-xenophobic empire came to be, for Q reveals that he was the empire's creator by virtue of messing with time. His challenge to Picard: go back in time and make everything better.

I'm not going to dilate on all the 21st-century rambles of the Picard Crew, except to note two politically charged developments. One involves Seven of Nine's visit to the Isle of Lesbos, a state of affairs that lesbian Trekkers stumped for back during the original VOYAGER run. The other deals with a despicable subplot about anti-ICE rhetoric that anticipates the ultraliberal fanaticism about protecting illegal aliens seen in 2025. Neither development has much to do with the main plotline.

Anyway, the Crew eventually does find its "patient zero" and erases the rogue timeline. In the course of events, somehow the comedy-relief Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) becomes the new Borg Queen of the future, but this, like Q's time-puzzle, all works out for the best. I'm not feeling too sanguine about the concluding Season Three.

Will Wheaton makes an appearance as Wesley Crusher, so this season also registers as having crossover-status.

          

CONSTANTINE-- THE SERIES (2014-15)

 

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

I won't discourse on the story behind DC's John Constantine, having already provided considerable data in my review of the 2005 CONSTANTINE. For purposes of reviewing this one-season rendition of comics' most famous exorcist, one only needs to know that the edgy Englishman is living in the U.S. for some reason (to make him more appealing to American audiences, I imagine) and that he seeks to "exorcise" his personal demons of guilt by helping other people escape from supernatural infestations. In this endeavor he gets aid from a few other kindred spirits, like Zed Martin (another comics-character, played by Angelica Celaya). A heavenly angel named Manny (Harold Perrineau) hangs around dispensing mostly useless pearls of wisdom.

All thirteen episodes of CONSTANTINE are well-constructed supernatural mysteries that the hero must solve using more wit and guile, given that his magical abilities are modest at best. The various victims of curses and possessions are given realistic characterizations and the FX and costumes are impressive, particularly in one episode's depiction of a monster called an "invunche" (derived from a 1980s SWAMP THING storyline). And Matt Ryan sells the Constantine character as few actors could have, emphasizing his impatience and sardonic humor without lessening the character's capacity for guilt and empathy. Yet there's something about all of the episodes that never escapes the shadow of the formulaic. To borrow from one of my ARCHIVE essays, the CONSTANTINE scripts are all about "what things happen" and not about "how things happen."

The writers also tried to conceal the show's episodic nature by injecting a continuing metaphysical threat, a "Rising Darkness" capable of breaking down the borders between earth and hell. But since the series was dropped, all these dire suggestions amount to window-dressing. The writers were comics-savvy enough to toss in "Easter-egg" references to DC characters like Jim Corrigan and Felix Faust, and there's a story involving a malignant "black diamond" that may have been a covert salute to Eclipso. But on the whole, CONSTANTINE's main virtue was the energetic performance of Ryan. Indeed, when Ryan reprised this role on the LEGENDS OF TOMORROW show, not even those writers' terrible scripts could rob the actor of his formidable presence. 

SCANNERS III: THE TAKEDOWN (1992)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychology*

Despite having the same director and writer as SCANNERS: THE NEW ORDER, the second sequel to SCANNERS doesn't rise to the level of competent genre-material. It does give viewers many scenes of Scanners tossing people around with telekinesis, but it screws up the psychological motifs that could have made for a better film than the original.

It's still roughly 10 years from the time of the original film, and though I don't remember much about NEW ORDER, it seemed odd to me that the general public now knows what Scanners are and what they can do. Some time back Elton Monet, a scientist who's been researching the Scanner phenomenon, adopted and raised to maturity two European kids, Alex (Steve Parrish) and Helena (Liliana Komorowska). Both have the requisite psychic powers, but for some reason the script doesn't venture to explain, Alex suffers none of the usual side-effects of his in utero mutation. In fact, at a party whose attendees all know what Alex is, the partygoers ask Alex to perform a trick with his powers. The trick results in a friend's accidental death, so Alex goes off to a Thailand monastery to learn how to control his powers. A better script might have made more of Alex's search for spiritual clarity, but the Thai-trek is just a plot-point.

To be sure, Alex gets secondary status because Helena is the star of the show. The young woman-- who incidentally remains friends with Valerie, Alex's ex-girlfriend-- suffers migraines whether she uses her powers or not. Her adoptive father reveals a new project: chemical patches that may be capable, after adequate testing, of eradicating the Scanner side-effects. However, Helena steals the patches to anneal her suffering. In nearly no time, the untested tech unleashes Helena's "Miss Hyde." She kills her adoptive father and enlists a small army of institutionalized Scanners to become her agents, and one of the first things she does is to send her pawns to Thailand to kill Alex.

Perhaps the dumbest subplot involves Helena to get revenge upon a scientist at Elton's institute who tortured her when she was a young girl-- wait, what? What was Elton doing at the time, and how did the guy get away with such actions? I think the writer might have been evoking the old "good father's who's really a bad father" trope. But he lacked the guts to give Elton such a personality, so this nugatory scientist was used to provoke Helena to vengeful violence.

Naturally Alex and his girlfriend save the day from the bad sister. Since the FX scenes are only fair, the sole reason to watch TAKEOVER is to watch Komorowska pull out all stops as a psychic super-villain.        

STARFORCE (2000)

 

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

Short review: STARFORCE, though weak in the plot department, is a much more serviceable example of a low-budget "space military" flick than nine-tenths of similar films in the same price range.

In yet another routine space-opera future, the ruling council of the united planets is protected by the Starforce, an elite cadre of test-tube bred soldiers. Space-pirates devastate the population of a colony world before being driven off by Starforce. One officer, Temetrian, crash-lands on the planet but the other Starforce soldiers don't find him right away. While stranded, Temetrian finds one survivor, a young boy named Zeb Lucene and protects the child until rescue comes. By that time, the soldier and the kid have bonded as surrogate father and son, and when Zed grows to maturity (and is played by Michael Bergin), Temetrian uses his clout to get Zed inducted into the Starforce, despite his not being genetically engineered. The first 15 minutes sets up a pretty good scenario re: Zed's need to prove himself despite opposition from his teammates.

However, then the plot proper begins, and that's where STARFORCE ceases to make sense. Zed is ordered to deliver medical supplies to a colony world, but his ship malfunctions so that he crashes. Back at Starforce, the absent Zed is accused of having stolen a ship, and his alleged orders are disavowed. So someone's got it in for Zed.

Zed survives the crash and is succored by Dahlia (Amy Weber), one of the denizens of the world-- which turns out to made up of criminals who had their sentences remitted for becoming colonists. However, apparently the authorities did a rotten job of surveying the planet, for the colonists have learned that their adopted world is rich in priceless tridium. The colonists have been debating the best way to profit from their discovery, but Zed has happened along just as some secret killer starts knocking off some of the residents.

There's no logic to why the murderous agent and his sponsors, a renegade unit of Starforce, needed Zed to be on the scene, except that there's no story if he's not there. However, if one can turn off one's awareness of the plot's failings and just focus on Zed and Dahlia fighting off nasty stormtroopers for the rest of the movie, STARFORCE provides tolerable diversion.

            

MULAN (1998)

 

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

Along with the 1999 TARZAN, MULAN was among the last box-office successes of the Disney Renaissance, after which the fortunes of the animation division began taking a downward turn. Though it's not one of the classics, MULAN shows more of the great Disney combinations of humor and pathos than any of the company's animated productions of the 21st century.

Although by 1998 it was standard practice for the Disney heroine to sing an "I want" song near the outset, "Reflections" seems more amorphous than others. Mulan is uncomfortable as she fails to fulfill his feminine destiny by simply making a good marriage for her family's sake. but she's not rebelling against the restrictive, honor-bound culture of dynastic China. (Disney's writers surely knew that China itself was a promising market even in 1998, so they didn't want to suggest a critique of Chinese culture.) Mulan simply wants to find her true self, whatever it is, little suspecting that her identity is going to be revealed through another imposture.

 An invasion of the Huns ("Mongol" being politically incorrect) proves bad luck for China but indirect good luck for Mulan. To keep her infirm father from being conscripted for anti-Hun repulsion, Mulan dresses up as a young man and joins the army. In this endeavor she's joined by a miniature ancestral dragon named Mushu (Eddie Murphy) and an intelligent cricket whose only purpose is to give Mushu a second character (besides Mulan) on whom to run lines. Despite having almost no powers beyond an ability to annoy, Mushu is functionally modeled on the Genie from ALADDIN, allowing him to indulge in assorted anachronistic jokes.

                  

Once she's ensconced at boot camp for new recruits, Mulan, using the name "Ping," meets her other support-characters: the handsome young commander Shang and three funny stooges: Ling, Yao and Chien Po. Initially Mulan gets on the wrong side of Ling and Yao, introducing her to the rough-and-tumble testosterone world. But it's Shang, the demanding drill sergeant, who provides the heroine with a criterion for identity: that "once you find your center, you are sure to win." Mulan's many fumbles almost get her dishonorably discharged, which would have solved the problem of how to keep her father and herself out of the army. But now Mulan wants to succeed, to excel among men even if she can't really "be a man," and she does so by performing a feat no one else in the unit could. As if by osmosis, Mulan finding her center causes everyone else in the troop to do the same.

But to its credit MULAN is much more than a service comedy, though the script plays up more hilarity on the troop's way to its first sortie. The soldiers have stoked their spirits by singing about their amorous intentions-- except for an embarrassed "Ping"-- only to be cut off when they sight a village burned out by the Huns. No dead bodies are seen, and only indirect evidence suggests that Shang's general father perished in the conflict. A little later, a horde of Huns charge the unit. Mulan unleashes an avalanche that kills most of them (bloodlessly), but the sequence captures much of chaos of warfare. And then Mulan's secret is exposed, to the mortification of those who've come to respect "Ping" for his courage and resourcefulness.

But to redeem Mulan for the crime of being a woman out of her place, the writers have to make Shan Yu do a Freddy Kruger and imperil the Emperor of China himself. The big finish includes a few strong moments, as when the Three Chinese Stooges are forced to dress up as women, but the last section is the weakest part of the movie. Still, MULAN manages to put across the ideal of a heroine who achieves masculine goals but who is not, unlike the later girlbosses, some ideological mixture of femininity and masculinity. The romance here is subplot rather than plot, and though Shang and Mulan will come together, Mulan finding her center is the thing that makes her movie a winner.

    

STAR TREK: PICARD (SEASON ONE, 2020)

 

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

SUPER HEAVY SPOILERS

Before venturing into this review, I wrote this essay to demonstrate that any nostalgic appeal for the STTNG series the producers hoped to evoke with PICARD was all but absent in me. In part I wrote:  

In the 1980s, as Roddenberry saw the franchise he'd created taken over by other hands, TNG gave him his last chance to infuse a teleseries with his guiding ethos. Yet this time he didn't want a series that stressed heroic action and character conflict. As many TNG critics have observed, Roddenberry wanted characters who had advanced beyond personal interest, not least with regard to that old devil sensuality. As the characters lacked personality in those early years, the players couldn't do much except to pontificate-- though always with the most earnest attitudes possible. For me, as a viewer not much impressed with TNG's early years, the culmination of this tendency appeared most egregiously in the first-season episode "Skin of Evil," which I call "The One Where Picard Has Righteous Conversations with an Oil Slick." 

What little online criticism I'd seen of PICARD had been negative, and I had little reason to extend the show any benefit of the doubt, given that PICARD's producer Alex Kurtzman also had his fingers in the Trek TV shows DISCOVERY and STRANGE NEW WORLDS and in two of the last three TREK theatrical movies. All of these I deemed garbage whose only merit was to make even the weaker TREK entries of the Rick Berman years look like genius. So when I liked PICARD, I can only posit that the crucial difference for me was Season One's showrunner was novelist Michael Chabon. For me, Season One's ten episodes bring out the Liberal political themes of TNG better than any ten episodes of the original series-- though of course PICARD has the advantage of presenting a unified narrative.

It's quite possible that some reviewers didn't like Chabon's labyrinthine storyline, and I must admit that I don't think it fully tracks, though that doesn't invalidate other qualities. Chabon drew strongly upon two TREK narratives I've not revisited since their theatrical debuts-- NEMESIS (2002), the last movie to spotlight the TNG cast, and the 2009 STAR TREK, which did not involve the TNG mythos but which Chabon seems to have retconned into said continuity, at least with respect to one event. Since I think Chabon's reworking of the TNG mythos was key to my enjoyment of the season, in this review I'm going to focus less on the story's dramatic twists and turns than on the phases of the Chabon timeline-- hence, SPOILERS.

PHASE 1-- In the distant past, a mighty civilization is destroyed by their populace of androids, usually called "synthetics." Though the organics die, they exile the synthetics to another dimension, and leave behind a recording, known as "The Admonition," to warn other sentients of the consequences of empowering synthetics.

PHASE 2-- At some later millennium, the Romulans discover the Admonition. A secret society, the Zhat Vash, dedicates itself to the prevention of another synthetic uprising.

PHASE 3-- The events of TREK NEMESIS transpire, culminating in the death of the synthetic Federation officer Data. As I recall, in that time-frame synthetics are not prevalent.

PHASE 4-- The events of TREK '09 transpire, though the only event referenced in PICARD is the destruction of Romulus, the Romulan homeworld. Chabon asserts that this event takes place in TNG time, and that Admiral Picard leads a humanitarian effort to rescue the imperiled denizens. However. not all Federation officials approve of succoring the Federation's rivals, and for that reason, the Zhat Vash takes an action that some might deem counter-intuitive. Apparently synthetics are being used in greater numbers at the time, so Romulan operatives somehow mess with a large number of synthetics on Mars. The synthetics revolt, which somehow impairs the Romulan rescue effort. Reactionary elements in the Federation use the revolt as an excuse to both shut down the rescue effort and to legislate against the further creation of synthetics. Picard opposes both measures and seeks to reignite the rescue effort by threatening to resign-- only to have his resignation accepted. Picard does succeed in rescuing a large number of Romulans and relocating them on the planet Vashti, but then the former Admiral goes into seclusion.

PHASE 5-- Unbeknownst to Picard, Data, prior to his death, created at least two twin female androids, Dahj and Soji, with the help of human scientist Maddox. Both are separately raised by human families without their even knowing they're synthetics, probably to keep them from being destroyed under the new laws. Maddox, wanting to continue his synthetic research, emigrates to another planet with some like-minded associates and populates that world with an android population. (It's a fine touch that the world is named Coppelius, after the robot-making mad scientist of Hoffmann's story "The Sandman.") The Zhat Vash wants to annihilate all the synthetics, but they don't know where Coppelius is. But they are able to locate Dahj and Soji. For some reason, agents Narissa and Narek track Soji to her workplace-- an abandoned Borg cube-- and seek to tap her memories to learn the location of the homeworld that Soji has buried in her subconscious memories. Other agents of Zhat Vash seek to abduct Dahj for similar treatment, but her cyber-skills activate and she kills them. Other memories surface, leading Dahj to seek out Picard-- who then has to learn all of this continuity in reverse order.

Though many details of the scenario are weak, they serve quite well to advance the political ethos of the story, which coheres admirably with a running trope from TNG: "androids are people too." PICARD is almost lyrical in its efforts to champion synthetics as not just an underclass in need of rescuing, but as a species of "children" that deserve the kindness and amity of all sentients. And while the Romulans are "the bad guys" for choosing to make synthetics into scapegoats, they are not, as in many TNG episodes, totally wrong. Toward the latter half of the season, the inhabitants of Coppelius are aghast to learn that a Romulan fleet seeks to destroy their world. Picard and his new crew cannot save them, but the synthetics can reach out to the extradimensional androids to save them. Picard is naturally just as much opposed to a Holocaust of organics as of synthetics, and he manages to sway the Coppelians to renounce the alien synthetics (who are seen briefly as some sort of tentacled Cthuluoids).

Speaking of the support cast, PICARD includes two characters from TNG, Troi and Ryker, and one from VOYAGER, Seven of Nine, but they play only small, though resonant, parts. Picard engages a new motley crew to aid him in his investigation, and while none of them are compelling, they all serve their purposes well enough. The only crewmember that shows potential is the Romulan youth Elnor, who views Picard as the father he never had but resents the admiral for having absented himself. The two villains Narissa and Narek are much better than most TNG foes, though. Narek inserts himself romantically into Soji's life to probe her memories, and his sister Narissa is visibly jealous of the hookup, threatening Narek to make sure he sticks to the mission. Narissa gets a solid demise in a battle with Seven of Nine-- one of several well-choreographed fight-scenes in this season-- but Narek's fate, that of being apprehended by Federation forces, was left on the cutting room floor.

But inevitably the show wouldn't work if Patrick Stewart didn't bring his A-game. I reject critics who said Picard is just "carried along" by events, for he's clearly the moral linchpin of Season One. Stewart's Picard is just as intermittently righteous and self-deprecating as he ever was in TNG, but here he's dealing with an issue far more substantive than most of those seen in the old show. (And I say that as a person that doesn't automatically validate the many Liberal permutations of the save-the-marginalized trope.) PICARD is a rare example of a sequel that improves on the original-- though I see that Michael Chabon may not contributed as much to ensuing seasons as to this one.        

MONSTER MASH (2024)

 

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

Unlike the other two movies I've reviewed here that used the title of Bobby Pickett's famous novelty song, the 2024 MONSTER MASH is not a comedy. This is all the more remarkable since it's a low-budget film from that maker of mockbusters, The Asylum, and it doesn't appear to be based on any current successful film. It's not a perfect film by any means, but it's a better monster-mash than, say, the bloated, near-charmless VAN HELSING.

Doctor Victor Frankenstein (Michael Madsen, practically sleep-acting) is dying. He decides to start harvesting parts from the world's most famous monsters-- the heart of Ramses the Mummy, the flesh of the Invisible Man, and the blood of Dracula-- in order to create a giant homunculus, in which he will transfer his intelligence. To this end, he first sends his undead Monster (Erik Celso Mann) to capture the lord of vampires. But Dracula (Ethan Daniel Corbett) happens to be away from his crypt, leaving behind his daughter Elisabeta (Emma Reinagel). Since she's also a vampire, the Monster drags her back to Frankenstein's castle and sticks her in a cell, so that her daddy will come looking for her and also get captured.

Now, given that I enjoyed MASH on its own terms, I almost feel guilty about pointing out that for the entire ninety-minute length of the movie, Frankenstein does absolutely NOTHING to guide Dracula to Frankenstein's castle. I suspect that writer-director Jose Prendes knew that if Frankenstein observed this bit of logic, then there would be no reason for Dracula to assemble a task force of monsters, and what we'd have would just be another "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" flick. So the mad doctor leaves Dracula to figure things out on his own. Dracula happens to know a (non-monstrous) witch who guides the count to the mummy Ramses. Ramses teams up with Drac and they find The Invisible Man Griffin, and Griffin in turn brings in a friendly werewolf. 

While I'm glad that the various monsters don't do the Marvel thing where they fight before they team up, the lack of an immediate menace means that every time the monsters come together, it's a lot of talking head scenes. Admittedly Prendes' script gives some clever lines to the mummy and the invisible fellow. The wolf-man is a blank slate, but it's cute that his civilian name of "Charles Conliffe" is not the usual variation on "Larry Talbot" of WOLF MAN fame but is rather the name of the father of Talbot's girlfriend in the 1941 movie. Still, it's Corbett's Dracula whose grim sense of purpose lends even the talking-head scenes a degree of urgency. 

For a B-plot, the imprisoned Elisabeta builds up a friendship with the Monster, whom the neglectful mad scientist treats a pliable stooge. Mann does a very pitiable Monster, so that his scenes with the young vampiress somewhat make up for Madsens's equally neglectful acting-job. 

Eventually the Monster Squad finds its way to Frankenstein's hideout, but Dracula is separated from his allies, so that the evil doctor transfers his blood into the giant homunculus. This is where MASH's low budget most lets down viewers, for the giant CGI critter can't interact with the normal-sized monsters. So the goodguy-monsters have to defeat the behemoth with some rather predictable strategy, and the Monster--whose name is "Boris," ha ha-- joins forces against his "father" in the homuculus-body. 

The only other "name" performer in the film is Michelle Bauer, who plays, in very heavy makeup, a resurrected corpse who helps the witch in her divinations. I surmise that Prendes knew he didn't have the money to make an impressive movie, so instead he made a mildly enjoyable trifle with some decent performances, primarily by Corbett and Mann. Worth seeing if you keep your expectations on the low side.

          

CHAMBER OF HORRORS (1966)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

"Jason Cravatte, a gentleman with a taste for the sewers..."

Before getting to the film proper, I'll spend some time remarking on the synchronicity of my reviewing, in the same month, two psycho-films I'd only seen once before, both of which could have been really good in their depiction of a common trope: "the Really Rich are Really Messed Up." The other one was A KNIFE FOR THE LADIES, and it shares with CHAMBER OF HORRORS the sense that the filmmakers of both weren't as devoted as they should've been to their psycho-subjects.

CHAMBER is credited to two writers, Stephen Kandel and Ray Russell, and a director, Hy Averback. Both Kandel and Averback were mostly journeymen laborers in the TV field, while Russell is best known for his short story "Mister Sardonicus," which gave rise to the William Castle film of the same name. My guess is that Russell, credited only with contributing to "story" rather than "screenplay," came up with the essence of the perilous psycho of CHAMBER-- which, even in its early origins, seems to have had some elements in common with Castle's other productions. Had Jason Cravatte been better elaborated, he could have been as good as Slade in THE LODGER.

We first see Cravatte (Patrick O'Neal) forcing a minister at gunpoint to marry him to a dead woman. Later, after the law has caught up with Cravatte, he escapes in such a way as to lose one hand. He then becomes a psycho-killer haunting the streets of 1880s Baltimore, but he's actually more interesting in the background provided by his aunt, Mrs. Perryman (Jeanette Nolan). The rich, fifty-something dowager informs the audience that despite the upper-class station of her nephew, he liked "the taste of the sewers" and apparently kept company with all manner of prostitutes (which is substantiated later when Cravatte's seen holed up in a whorehouse). If this was all there was to him, he'd just be a dime-a-dozen roue. But he also had some desire for a "madonna" as an antidote to the whores, because he courted blonde Melinda-- the dead woman seen at the opening-- in the belief that she was virginal. He killed her when he learned she was not pure, and yet he also had some notion that he "purified" her by killing her, for he seems to have every intention of taking his pleasure with her dead body. In addition, even after the madman's been condemned but escapes, he repeats this syndrome by paying a similar-looking prostitute to "play dead."

Unfortunately, the script doesn't follow the "madonna-whore" complex with any close attention. After Cravatte escapes the law and becomes "the Butcher of Baltimore"-- complete with various killing-devices he can fit into his empty wrist-socket-- he takes up a brand- new psycho-obsession. He starts killing off the men who sentenced him to the hangman, and out of nowhere there's some folderol about his forming a "composite corpse" of the body parts of his victims. This poorly conceived notion turns Cravatte into just another gimmick-oriented psycho-killer-- though Patrick O'Neal's rousing performance as Cravatte sustains the film through all its dull spots.

Now, although Cravatte is the Prime icon of CHAMBER OF HORRORS the film, he would not have been had CHAMBER succeeded in its original purpose, as a pilot for a TV-series, originally called "House of Wax" after the 1953 horror-film. If any of the networks had greenlighted "House" as a series, then the default stars of all the episodes would have been the characters Tony Draco (Cesare Danova) and Harold Blount (Wilfrid Hyde-White). These two amateur detectives-- whose backgrounds are spotty at best-- run a wax museum with the title "House of Wax," and unlike the one in the Vincent Price movie, all of their wax statues are devoted to murder and the macabre. Indeed, the script tends to suggest that Draco and Blount's fascination with the macabre-- presented as being benign, I guess like that of the pilot-makers-- is what makes them great detectives. Presumably they would have proved this again and again on a weekly basis. But though there was no series, CHAMBER still ends with the suggestion of another "episode" involving another bizarre murder.

Many reviewers have remarked on how little gore is present in a film about a psycho who frequently stabs people with his hand-utensils. Yet even without the gore, the concept was clearly too disturbing for the TV networks to accept. I speculate that the producers-- one of whom was director Averback-- were hoping to titillate TV audiences by frequently having Draco and Blount make speeches about all the horrible deeds performed by the subjects of their wax exhibits. This idea wouldn't have worked as a TV-show in a million years. But even with all the missteps in the pilot-movie-- enhanced with Castle-like gimmicks when CHAMBER went to theatres-- the Russell-Kandel provides some fun moments, albeit with a poky pace that made me appreciate William Castle's superior narrative drive. 

Next-to-lastly, while CHAMBER's script isn't interested in the opposition between "serene beauty and titillating shocks" established in Crane Wilbur's HOUSE OF WAX script, Averback et al did offer another form of enticement. Aside from the first female victim, only one feminine character is strictly necessary to the script: that of Marie (Laura Devon), a bargirl whom Cravatte makes into his partner, mostly so that she can seduce one of his victims, a horny old trial judge, and then lure the old duffer into a trap. But the script also works in technically unnecessary roles for glamorous actresses like Patrice Wynore and Suzy Parker, as well as several briefly-seen young working-women. (At times CHAMBER almost seems to anticipate how the Italian giallos developed in the early 1970s.) This strategy was doubtless meant to suggest that ladies- man Draco would have a girl to seduce every week had CHAMBER become a series. Indeed, the theatrical movie even gives some exposure to past-their-prime beauties like Nolan and Marie Windsor-- though Nolan steals the show, making clear that her side of the family is just as lubricious as that of Cravatte's paternal line.

Two other last things: first, thanks to a spectacular fight between Cravatte and Draco at the conclusion, CHAMBER, like HOUSE OF WAX, qualifies as a combative drama. Second, right around the time Hy Averback completed the pilot-movie, he became executive producer for the slapstick teleseries F TROOP, which certainly seems to have been much more up his alley.

  

   

                              

V: THE FINAL BATTLE (1984)

 

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

At the end of my review of the original V miniseries, I described how Kenneth Johnson, creator of the V franchise, had contributed ideas to the 1984 three-part sequel. However, he parted ways with NBC and distanced himself from the project by letting his work be billed under the protest-pseudonym "Lillian Weezer." 

I also noted that it's impossible to know if Johnson's V-vision would have been better than what NBC put together with its own producers and their director of choice, Richard T. Heffron. Now, while I don't find in Heffron's repertoire as many famed accomplishments as I find in Johnson's, I did see a lot of the former's TV and theatrical works, and he certainly was no hack. I particularly admired a telefilm he directed regarding the Nez Perce tragedy, I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER.

One big advantage Heffron had was that Johnson's 1983 story supplied all the necessary setup for the Visitors' stealth invasion of Earth, thus eliminating much of the need for exposition in the sequel. But one great improvement is that Heffron's writing-staff pared down a lot of the extraneous characters from the '83 series. Additionally, whereas the main characters of Julie and Mike (Faye Grant, Marc Singer) proved a little banal in the first film, the addition of a third central character, Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside), provided a greater sense of conflict. Unlike civilians Julie and Mike, Ham joined the rebels as an experienced combat veteran, and he wasn't shy about expressing his opinions on how the resistance should be run, or even openly defying his "old pal" Mike. 

An equally strong parallel idea focused more upon the villainous head of the Visitor operations, Diana (Jane Badler). Technically in both serials, a male alien named John (Richard Herd) held the power of command over the mission, but Diana received much more attention in the '83 two-parter, and BATTLE found even more ways to play up the feminine fiend. In fact, she too had to deal with internecine troubles, since a superior officer, one Pamela (Sarah Douglas), comes to Earth to take over the project. However, Diana shows her propensity for super-villainy by simply assassinating her commander.

That's not to say BATTLE is perfect. Despite fewer characters, there are a lot of disposable subplots, giving the three segments a choppy feeling. However, the best subplot from the '83 serial-- that Earth-girl Robin giving birth to a hybrid-- receives strong execution. In fact, the Interplanetary Mama gives birth to two such hybrids, and Part 2 shows a particular moment of horror when Robin's birth of a human-looking girl infant, Elizabeth, is followed by a reptilian goblin springing from her uterus. However, Part 3 saves the heroes the difficulty of putting down the goblin-child, for it perishes by exposure to Earth-bacteria-- which development in turn gives the Earthlings the chance to show the Visitors that visiting-time is over.

There's also a decent arc for the quirky "good alien" Willie, played in a modest, self-effacing manner by the future Freddy Kruger. Compared to the Johnson narrative, BATTLE has much less pontificating about a return of fascism, and more visceral action. Even the Julie character, usually not seen in the field, gets to shoot down bad aliens with her laser pistol. Heffron and company also drop one of the plot-threads suggested in '83, that the Earthpeople might seek to summon some of the ETs who'd been enemies to the Visitors-- which was a terrible idea, even though it would have fit Johnson's labored WWII parallel. It's far more satisfying to see the Earthlings win the BATTLE on their own.

            

V; THE MINI-SERIES (1983)

 

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

Though I read IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, the Sinclair Lewis book that purportedly inspired Kenneth Johnson's two-part TV miniseries, I remember nothing about said novel. Johnson's V is more memorable than Lewis, thanks to those spiffy Visitor uniforms. Frankly, though, I think Johnson's main inspiration might have been those morale-boosting war movies of the early 1940s. Clearly, having the heroic rebels combat the tyrants by writing "V"-- as in "Victory"-- over the tyrants' posters was an explicit callback to Hollywood iconography.

That said, Johnson's story of a race of aliens who invade Earth using false promises and blandishments more than advanced weapons offers only a paper-thin critique of fascism. The Visitors also pose as human-like ETs clad in bright red outfits, but in due time the good guys learn that they're all lizard-like beings whose scaled bodies are concealed under plastic "human" skin-- a fairly clumsy gambit, though Johnson makes the most of various moments when someone tears away the false flesh. That the Visitors want to pirate Earth's water for the benefit of their dying homeworld is a standard enough SF-trope. However, Johnson really pours on the corn by claiming that these denizens of an alien environment just can't wait to chow down on homo sapiens. Not too many SF-authors would favor the idea that ETs from one world could even tolerate organic sustenance from another one. In addition, even though all of Earth is placed in the position of Europe under the sway of the Axis Powers during WWII, the most villainous member of the evil Visitors, deputy leader "Diana" (Jane Badler), is played by an American actress affecting a British accent.

Johnson introduces about twenty Earth-characters who respond in various ways to the wheedling impositions of the Visitors, though naturally most of them function as support-characters. The two who get the most attention are biologist Julie (Faye Grant) and reporter Mike (Marc Singer), who eventually uncover the awful truth about the aliens. Almost half of the mini-series consists of various sketched-out characters reacting to the Visitors' advent, and almost none of them are compelling as characters. I suppose I must acknowledge that one of those characters is a Jewish survivor of the WWII concentration camps, though this seems an indulgence on Johnson's part, given that the Visitors are not concerned with human racial or ethnic divisions. But one female teen, Robin (Blair Tefkin), has the misfortune to sleep with a handsome male visitor. This establishes a subplot about the first spawn of a human/Visitor mating, one that extends into the follow-up 1984 miniseries. In addition, a pre-Freddy Robert Englund shows up as one of a small number of Visitors who oppose the vicious plots of their kindred. These covert resisters eventually make common cause with the Earth-rebels, though again, not until the sequel series does their alliance become important. 

Though none of the actors are given the chance to work nuance into their performances, athletic Marc Singer, one year after his first turn as "The Beastmaster," keeps the action level high enough to counter the melodrama. The series was popular enough to generate a sequel the next year, on which Kenneth Johnson worked briefly before falling out with NBC executives. Thus whatever script-ideas Johnson contributed to the sequel were controlled by other authorities and not representative of his creative priorities. Johnson later authored a prose novel about how he felt the show should have progressed. As of this writing, though, it's impossible to say if his direction would have better or worse than what followed the original two-part series.

 

TERMINATOR: DARK FATE (2019)

 

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

Though FATE is indubitably one of the many films affected by Hollywood's version of DEI, it's not nearly as entertainment-free as many others from this unfortunate period. To be sure, the only entertainment stems from the abilities of director Tim (DEADPOOL) Miller and the FX-crew, and not from the script cobbled together by three writers swiping as much as feasible from TERMINATOR 2.

Like other films in the TERMINATOR franchise, FATE seeks to ignore later films in the series, in the case choosing to proceed as if it takes place a few years after the second film. Yet the script, presumably to suit the demands of producers, perversely cancels out the audience's good will by reversing the events of T2. Eight years after Sarah Connor and a T-800 Terminator (Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger) saved Sarah's son John from death by a T-1000, another Terminator (also Schwarzenegger) ambushes Sarah and John, kills John, and escapes. The time-travel paradoxes of this event are not explored, for the script's priority is to introduce two new female presences to this iteration. 

One of them, Dani (Natalia Reyes), is meant to provide a XX savior-figure in place of the slain John, for somehow his death simply changes the future so that Dani will be the great military leader who defeats Skynet. (The script initially fakes out the viewer with the implication that Dani's going to be the mother of a female savior, but the revelation is profoundly dull.) The other new woman warrior is Grace (Mackenzie Davis), a cyborg enhanced with mechanical implants, and who deals herself into this struggle even though-- she's from a totally different future with a different cyber-intelligence, Legion? Yeah, I didn't even try to follow the logic here. But Legion follows the same basic pattern as Skynet, sending back a metamorphic "fluid metal" Terminator (Gabriel Luna) to kill Dani. And somehow both aggrieved Sarah and the T-800 sign up to protect Dani and defeat the time-traveling assassin.

The crappy "dramatic" arcs of Dani and Sarah are worthless, hollow imitations of the superior John and Sarah arcs from T2, and the one for the T-800 is only minimally better than either, mostly because one suspects that this derivative film marks Schwarzenegger's farewell to his signature character. But though new faces Reyes and Luna are dull, and Hamilton returns to do nothing but scowl and glower alternately, Mackenzie Davis proves a much more charismatic presence than the other newbies, and Miller gives her plenty of demanding stunts that keep this otherwise dull pot boiling. The one good thing about this bad script is that because of it, FATE bombed at the box office, and it's to be hoped that at long last this franchise, which peaked with the first two films and never really blossomed again, will be allowed to fade into the past.
        

BLOODY PIT OF HORROR (1965)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

I've argued in a separate essay that BLOODY PIT OF HORROR is more than just another dumb horror flick about a menace in an old castle. Though its writers and director were probably innocent of any desire to make PIT "arty" in any way, I find it likely that they were aware of how routine many similar old-castle flicks had become even in the short period of Italy's investment in horror cinema. After all, PIT was being shot at the same Palazzo Borghese castle that had hosted two generic flicks, THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA and THE PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE. Whatever behind-the-scenes crew might have been in both of these as well as PIT, the only obvious point of continuity is the lead male player, Walter Brandi.

There's nothing very notable about the victims here than in the earlier two films. Since the "old dark house" flicks of the silent era, there was an established trope in which a group of vulnerable individuals get trapped/stranded in some house where a mystery killer seeks to knock them off one by one. In this case, PIT, like the two 1960 movies, ups the level of pulchritude seen in old dark house films. This time the group is led to a remote castle by Parks, a publisher of crime and horror books. I have no idea if Italian publishing houses actually went around looking for locations at which to shoot photos, and since one guy in the party dresses up in a skeleton costume a la Italian comics-villains like Diabolik and Kriminal, it's possible Parks is publishing fumetti, not "real books." Frankly, the location-scouting thing sounds more typical of movie companies, like the one making this film. In any case Parks brings with a couple of male assistants, his star writer Rick (Brandi), his secretary Edith (Louise Barrett), and four gorgeous models. Of the persons in Parks' party, only two get anything like two-dimensional characterization. Edith, despite not ever having seen the castle before, feels strangely drawn to it. Rick occasionally tosses out wry remarks about his association with this farrago, and we later learn he was a reporter and fell into writing horror books because it seemed easy.

Parks orders his people to break into the castle, thinking it deserted. The unnamed "master of the house" (Mickey Hargitay) and his whole two servants (both strapping men in outfits like those of Venetian gondoliers) order the group to leave. However, from a secret vantage the master sees and recognizes Edith, whereon he changes his mind, permitting the crew to remain for the night, as long as they keep clear of the castle's dungeons.

Now, it's likely dire things might have happened to the visitors even if they'd obeyed the injunction. But of course Parks can't pass up a chance to take dungeon-pictures, so he and his crew invade the dungeon and set up sexy scenarios. It's all fun and games, until someone loses a head when one of the torture-machines kills him.

There's no mystery about who the killer is, even after it's disclosed that the castle once belonged to a medieval torturer, The Crimson Executioner, killed by authorities in his own domicile. Once Edith eventually gets a look at the castle's owner, she tells Rick she was once engaged to actor Travis Anderson, renowned for having played "muscle men in costume films," Anderson, says Edith, left her without explanation, or even cancelling their engagement, and evidently purchased the castle because he admired the accomplishments of its medieval master. By this time, though, Anderson and his henchmen have already killed a couple more victims, and as in the persona of the scarlet-clad torturer, Anderson begins using his specialized devices to wreak havoc on Parks and the terrified models. He takes Edith prisoner as well, trying to get her to embrace a hanging mannequin with poisoned barbs attached. Meanwhile, Rick, the only one free, has a couple of running battles with one of the henchmen (not sure where the second one went). After the henchman thinks he's killed Rick with an arrow, the guy reports to his leader in the dungeon. However, Rick's death is a fakeout, and he shows up in the dungeon, beating down each of the two men in succession. (Nice of them not to gang up on the writer.) The Executioner conveniently runs into the "poison mannequin" and is semi-literally hoist on his own petard. Rick and Edith alone survive the ordeal, implicitly with some romance for both in future.

Now, there's one minor sociological motif in PIT: that of purveyors of sexy/violent fiction get subjected to real horrors. But no one in the audience was likely to agree with the villain was justified in visiting these dooms on foolish innocents, even though they trespassed on private property. PIT doesn't possess, or claim to possess, internal logic. But given all the lovingly constructed torture devices Anderson has at his immediate disposal, clearly he's been at least fantasizing about subjecting victims to torture-scenarios for quite some time. One device is a huge spider-web with arrows rigged to fire if anyone touches the web-strands: Rick tries and fails to rescue one model (Moha Tahi) from this web of sin. Another is the poison mannequin, which Anderson calls "the Lover of Death." Curiously in the English dub. Anderson genders the mannequin as a "him" even though the dummy has long blonde hair. It would make more sense if Anderson had considered this mock-horror to be a representative of the perils of female sexuality and so would also be roughly congruent with the way the original medieval Executioner dies, by Iron Maiden. 

And why does Anderson want so badly to torture others? Well, the easy answer is that of compensation: he tortures others because he feels tortured. But assuming that the English dub represents the original Italian reasonably well, then the writers were also apparently having fun with the idea of a big strong muscleman who utters lines like "a woman's love would have destroyed me."

Sketchy though both Anderson and Edith are, their one long conversation suggests that Anderson, in pursuing a career as a "muscle man in costume films" formed the idea that he had made himself into "a perfect body." Since physical culture requires denial, Anderson eventually denied himself anything that detracted from his goal of bodily perfection. It's funny when Edith reacts to Anderson's declarations by calling Anderson an "egotist." Yet it's nonetheless true that the villain has validated his ego by worshipping not only his own body's physical power, but also the power that was once wielded by a long-dead master of torture-devices. Italian audiences would have also recognized that when Edith speaks of "costume pictures," she means a specific breed of historical flicks in which a male hero showed off a boulder-shouldered physique, the better to portray legendary heroes like Hercules, Samson and Maciste. The English dialogue does not allude to the fact that by 1965, hardly anyone was making "Hercules films" anymore, so all of Anderson's efforts to sculpt his body for the purposes of cinematic employment would have come to nothing. (And of course the writers would also have known that Mickey Hargitay played Hercules in one Italian-made spectacle from 1960.) However, the existing soundtrack emphasizes only Anderson's fear that somehow the love of a woman will compromise his male integrity. 

I've seen one or two arguments that PIT represents Anderson's rejection of his former fiancee as homoerotic in nature, and for a time I considered this possibility, given that Anderson's only two servants are musclemen like he is. However, the more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed. If Anderson's concern is for keeping the integrity of his "perfect body," then a homosexual encounter would be MORE invasive, not less. It's more likely Anderson keeps around two hulking guards because they present no attractions for him, and also because they're the most effective guardians of his privacy. But when Parks' band brings sexy women into Anderson's domain-- one of whom is the woman he had at least dallied with-- then that occurrence reactivates his antipathy toward sex. As long as there were no women around, Anderson could lose himself in narcissistic dreams of his perfection and of the power once wielded by his idol, the Crimson Executioner. But once the female sex is on his radar, then he becomes obsessed with being a torture-master. 

              

And for my last point, I wondered in my other essay how the writers even came up with the idea of a big muscleman dispensing tortures. And one possibility is that if one or more writers were familiar with the major tropes of the musclemen films, they would have known that a great many of those movies place the bulked-up hero in some situation where he must conquer some infernal device (like a spiked wall) or some huge animal, etc. These tortures are visited upon the hero by men and women who cannot possibly fight the hero on his own terms, and in the case of the women, usually evil queens, there can be an element of sadism, the desire to conquer the noble crusader. I hypothesize that the writers of PIT, if only for the sake of variety, wanted to reverse that trope, so that the hulking protagonist would reveal his own impotence in torturing those weaker than himself.  

SNOW MONSTER VS. ICE SHARK (2019)

 

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

I don't get the sense that the SYFY channel, whatever its status these days, produces as many giant-beast films as it used to. However, I've been seeing more of them on streaming with Asian names in the billing, so I gather one or more Chinese studios have moved in to make up the deficit.

And just like the SYFY monster-flicks, this one, SNOW MONSTER VS ICE SHARK, is just as bereft of entertainment value as most of the American offerings. Actors who may or may not be talented are stuck reciting bland dialogue. One partial online review asserts that the movie was originally just called SNOW MONSTER, which was more accurate since SM is basically a routine emulation of KING KONG, but with a somewhat larger Abominable Snowman, albeit one with atypical goat-horns.

A fanatical Chinese scientist. name of Lin, sends an expedition into some snowy terrain-- the Arctic, possibly-- in search of a fabled snow monster. The expedition is headed by Lin's own niece Xiaoquin, but all members of the party go missing when a giant creature attacks them.

The government funding the project promptly sends an all-male task force to find the lost scientists, and once the soldiers are there, they stumble around for about half an hour before finally meeting a giant monster. Yet it's not the Snow Monster, but a predacious Ice Shark, leaping out of the water beneath the frozen ice. However, since the shark can't be allowed to take out all the heroes, the Snow Monster shows up and easily defeats the fish (which is nowhere near the snowman's size) by grabbing its tail and slamming it against a mountain. So much for the "vs." promised by the title-makers.

The soldiers are then taken prisoner by some snow-dwelling tribal humans who worship the Snow Monster. But as in more than one KONG remake, the natives and their monster are both benign, and the soldiers encounter at least one of the scientists they sought, Xiaoquin. So no more reason for fighting, right? Wrong; Uncle Lin is a corrupt dirtbag who brings in a lot more soldiers, and even a plane with a sonic weapon, in order to kill the Monster and harvest its genes for-- something or other. 

As in most of the SYFY monster-flicks, there's a lot of limited CGI fighting by the big critter, and he has a kung-fu priestess (Li Ruoxi) who provides most of the human-to-human conflict. Uncle Lin and his forces (were they government-controlled?) are wiped out, the tribe gets to keep its god-monster, and all the good people live and go home.

I will say the production values for this looked a little better than most of the SYFY items this genre, and though there's not a big monster-battle at least it is a valid monster-mashup. But those are the only merits of this forgettable bit of tripe.         

ASH VS EVIL DEAD SEASON THREE (2018)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

The first time I saw Season Three, I perceived a fall-off in the show's balls-to-the-wall qualities, so much so that I rather wished the show stopped with the second season. I now think the conclusion works, partly as a callback to the events of ARMY OF DARKNESS, and I agree with the stated verdict of Bruce Campbell, to the effect that this season rounded off everything possible that could be done with the character of Ash Williams. That doesn't mean the season doesn't have a big problem, though. The introduction of the overly "normie" character of Brandy, the daughter Ash never knew he had, undercuts the wild irresponsibility of the demon-hunting insanity.

FAMILY-- Again the Necronomicon summons the Evil Dead, and Ruby seeks to gain control of the demons-- this time by performing a ritual that will make her pregnant with a demonic version of Ash, the destined savior of the world. In Elk Grove Ash and Pablo encounter Ash's old (and barely remembered) lover Candy, who informs him that all this time he's had a daughter, teenaged Brandy (Arielle Carver-O'Neill), without knowing of her. This does move Ash to assume a more responsible role, meathead though he remains. Kelly shows up from some unexplained foray in the company of Dalton, a handsome fellow who belongs to a demon-fighting cadre, the Knights of Sumeria. This engenders jealousy in Pablo. Ash, Pablo and Candy get wind of a threat to Brandy, and rush to her school. However, the demons possess Brandy's friend Rachel, and in a musically themed combat, Rachel beheads Candy-- albeit only minutes after Candy has revealed to Brandy the identity of her father. Ash destroys Rachel.  

BOOTH THREE-- I'm not sure what causes Ash to suspect that Ruby may've got access to the sperm Ash had on file at the local bank-- where Ash has long been a cheerful contributor-- but he shows up in "booth three" to investigate and once again has to fight the Evil Dead. He also finds out that for some time Ruby has been at Brandy's school posing as a counselor, but Brandy, revulsed by her father's role in her mother's gruesome death, refuses to believe Ash about Ruby. Dalton tells Kelly that because Pablo still has the script of the Book embedded in his flesh, Pablo remains a danger and should be eliminated. 

APPARENTLY DEAD-- You know those disreputable relatives who make a scene at funerals, by brawling with the undead deceased? Well, that's Ash thanks to the demonic revival of Candy at her funeral, all for the purpose of further alienating Brandy from Ash. I guess this is a Ruby scheme though I didn't see what benefit that alienation was to her. A vision guides Pablo, Kelly and Dalton back to the cabin to unearth the magical dagger that seems to come and go so quickly throughout the story. A Deadite tree-monster impales Dalton with a branch (wish fulfillment for Pablo?) and Dalton too becomes a Deadite who must be destroyed. When Ash shows up at Brandy's home, he finds her watching tv with a convincing simulacrum of Brock, the grandfather she never knew. Ash is forced to destroy this fake father after having seen the real one slain by the Evil Dead.

UNIFINISHED BUSINESS-- Dalton proves to be right: Pablo is susceptible to being possessed because of his history with the Book (though the show really has no rules about who can or can't be possessed, as witness the possession of the innocent Rachel). Demonic Pablo bites Kelly's leg so as to infect it with a mini-demon face. More significantly, the spirit of the real Brock (no rules about whose ghosts can or can't appear either) manifests to fill in some blanks for his demon-hunting son. It seems that in 2012, while Brock and Ash were still alienated, Brock got a visit from a Knight of Sumeria and accidentally killed the guy-- which is important only because the knight has some missing pages of the Book with him, so that's a new grail to seek. Ash goes looking for Ruby, but she's at the cabin interrogating the corpse of Dalton, so Ash has to settle for learning that Ruby's spawn, Baby Demon-Ash, is terrorizing the "nurse" Ruby forced to care for the evil tyke. 

BABY PROOF-- Ash escaped dealing with his daughter's "terrible twos," but all his hassles with the demon-tyke more than compensate. While Ash tries to capture Baby Ash, the spirit of Pablo communes with that of his uncle The Brujo and learns a ritual by which he can return to life. Pablo does so. Ruby regains custody of her spawn, but Brandy is finally convinced of her father's heroism and joins his team.

TALES FROM THE RIFT-- More Knights of Sumeria show up on Ash's doorstep, and thanks to the past-vision vouchsafed Ash by his dead dad, he's able to find the missing book-pages. The Knights, aided by alive-again Pablo, attempt a ritual to open an interspatial rift that might help them control the demons. However, one of their number goes Deadite, killing all the Knights save one until Ash is able to slay the possessee. Kelly, by this time rid of her demon-infection, gets a hard jones to kill Ruby. The two of them have a big splashy battle, but Kelly loses and is slain by Ruby. The evil witch then allows Kelly's dead body to be possessed by another sorceress, Kaya.

TWIST AND SHOUT-- Ruby's attempt at deception is undermined when Pablo receives a vision from the ghost of Kelly. However, by this time Kaya, posing as Kelly, has joined Ash and Brandy as they seek out the school dance, where they hope to confront Ruby. A big fight erupts in front of the horrified students and teachers, while Ruby's spawn, now grown to manhood, battles the real Ash. Though Ash kills his clone, Ruby almost kills the hero with the dagger. However, Brandy intervenes and saves her father's life by taking the dagger and (temporarily) dying. 

RIFTING APART-- Gaining custody of Brandy's body, Ash has a brilliant idea how to restore her to life: he has Pablo stab him with the dagger, so that his spirit ends up with hers in the rift-world. This works better than expected, for Ash finds not only the spirit of Brandy but those of Dalton and Kelly too. Pursued by a demon, Dalton sacrifices his ghost-life to allow the others to return to the real world. Kelly can't manage to do so because Kaya's possessing her body. Meanwhile, Kaya gets hold of the last surviving Knight, name of Zoe, who's supposed to help Kaya and Ruby gain control of the demons.

JUDGMENT DAY-- Now Ruby has both the demons and the Ash Team after her, and despite the attempt she and Kaya make to conceal themselves, they have only minimal success. Ash battles Ruby, who fends off his best efforts thanks to her immortality, and even wrecks his precious chainsaw. However, the demons arrive and accidentally save Ash's life by sucking away the spirits of Ruby and Kaya. The absence of Kaya in Kelly's body makes it possible for Ash to attempt reuniting Kelly's spirit with her body-- which finally makes it possible for Pablo to get with Kelly. However, the demons have also made a full-fledged invasion of the earth-realm with an invulnerable sixty-foot demon.

THE METTLE OF MAN-- The world is finally beset by demons, though Ash only sees the part of the battle taking place in Elk Grove. Kelly is restored to her body, but the titanic demon is on the rampage, and American soldiers seek to evacuate the town before the military drops a nuclear warhead on the creature. Ash allows his friends to escape but seeks to find an alternative battle-plan, using a tank and the super-dagger to destroy the giant demon. However, in a transition intended to call back to ARMY OF DARKNESS, Ash is somehow transported into a post-apocalyptic future, where he accepts his new destiny to continue a new fight against evil.

If anyone had told me that Sam Raimi and his colleagues could make an epic out of the simple and unpromising materials of the 1981 EVIL DEAD, I would have scoffed big-time. I also would never have believed that Raimi et al could take a meathead character like Ash and make him into "the stone the builders rejected." Yet all the things that make Ash a loser in the real world-- his laziness, his vulgarity, his man-whorishness-- are the things that give him the vitality to be a larger-than-life hero. That's one reason I classified the series as a combative drama despite all the looney-toons slapstick, because Ash ends his career as a hero taking his leave of his friends and daughter, symbolically "dying" to the world of reality but finally accepting his heroic destiny in "the world to come."