SPAWN (1997)

 

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

I never read more than random issues of the 1990s SPAWN comic when it broke sales records of the day. However, I've viewed a podcast which makes a pretty good case that over the years the series-- whether executed by creator Todd MacFarlane or by other hands-- never really climbed out of its rut. With that in mind, the live-action SPAWN perfectly represents its source material, though that doesn't make it any easier to slog through.

In essence, the SPAWN concept is the story of a sinner stuck between Heaven and Hell, whose "purgatory" consists of a never-ending war against Hell's minions. Al Simmons (Michael Jai White) is a government hitman, but you know he's a potentially good guy because he's handsome, has a hot wife named Wanda(Theresa Randle), and wants to quit killing people for a living. (I don't think he expresses any regrets for his targets though.) He takes his orders from corporate scumbag Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen), but Wynn decides that Simmons is a dangerous wild card and has Simmons shot and burned to death by another agent, Jessica Priest (Melinda Clarke, playing a character original to the film). 

The spirit of Simmons manifests in the Hell of the demon Malebolgia, who offers the dead man a deal: that he will be allowed to return to Earth if he accepts the bargain to lead an army of demons against Heaven. Why Malebolgia thinks Simmons to be such a great catch is not elaborated. Simmons accepts the deal, but it comes with some hidden clauses. Simmons does get some snazzy "necroplasm" armor that he can manipulate with his mind, including being able to whip a long red cape whenever, er, the budget permits it. But his flesh remains burned all over, and in the earth-world five years have passed. After her husband's death Wanda re-married so that her child Cyan would have a father, and the new hubby/dad is none other than Simmons' old partner Terry. 

Frustrated by this turn of events, Simmons, now known as Spawn, starts bumming around a demimonde of homeless people. There he becomes the bone over which two "dogs" fight. One is the obscene clown Violator (John Leguizamo), a servant of Malebolgia and a fellow who's taken elocution lessons from Michael Keaton's Beetlejuice. The other is the mystic Cogliostro (Nicol Williamson in his final film role), a former Hellspawn who now serves Heaven. However, there's not much to their ethical quarrel, and Spawn is still motivated only by the lust for vengeance. This dubious hero is eventually turned to serve the forces of good, but the conversion never seems like anything but a forced plot point.

Direction and special FX are pedestrian, but an imaginative script still might have salvaged something from this farrago. However, the only slightly imaginative scenes are those in which Violator is running his mouth, uttering various PG-rated blasphemies. When this character isn't on screen, everything slows down, even the action scenes. 

SPAWN was one of several films in which Hollywood adapted superheroes not produced by the more high-end Marvel and DC. Perhaps the studios were seeking properties that didn't cost much up front. However, the next-year success of the minor Marvel franchise BLADE might have convinced the money-men to pay more on the front end, since the early 2000s would focus almost exclusively in Marvel or DC properties.

GODZILLA VS. THE SMOG MONSTER (1971)

 

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

I didn't like SMOG back in The Day, because I didn't appreciate having my giant monster fantasies mixed up with environmentalist messages. But then, in 1971 I may not have appreciated that the original Godzilla film had much to do with humans taking responsibility for having unleashed another sort of doomsday weapon.

On re-screening SMOG I found myself greatly impressed with director Yoshimitsu Banno's colorful visual style, possibly forged during his duties as an assistant director on four Akira Kurosawa features. This is significant for two reasons. First, Banno was not given a very large budget, though he avoided the sin of the previous film in the series, GODZILLA'S REVENGE, with its penny-pinching re-use of earlier footage. Second, all three previous directors of Godzilla films-- Ishiro Honda, Motoyoshi Oda, and Jun Fukuda-- had always depicted the monster's exploits in a very straightforward manner, with few if any stylistic flourishes. So Toho Studios was taking a chance with Banno, not unlike Hollywood in the same era experimenting with its Young Turks (though in 1971 Banno was forty years old).

Because Earth-people have allowed pollution to get out of control, Hedorah, an alien being from a sort of anti-universe invades and begins feeding on industrial wastes. Hedorah then exudes his own gaseous wastes, poisoning innumerable human beings. Godzilla, perhaps sensing a threat to his own environment, gives battle to the intruder. However, the slimy shit-creature far outdoes Mothra in his ability to metamorphose into new combat-forms, and in one such form, he nearly slaughters the King of Monsters.

Although most of the humans are nugatory characters, they are able to render aid to Godzilla with a weapon very like one their ancestors used against him: a giant electrical fence. Godzilla wins, but will humanity learn its lesson this time?

Though SMOG is the film in which Godzilla first used his atomic breath to shot himself backward like a rocket, the monster-battles have a kinetic intensity rare in films of the period. The only human who registers as a character is a young boy, Ken, who has a precognitive dream that only Godzilla can save the world, but his presence doesn't make the story as sentimental as it would in a Gamera flick.

For reasons pertaining to employer prejudice Banno was never given a chance at another Godzilla film, even though in the Japanese box office SMOG did slightly better than REVENGE, and indeed all Godzilla films after DESTROY ALL MONSTERS hovered around the same $6 million BO, with the exception of MEGALON for some reason. Fortunately, before his passing Banno was treated as a prophet with honor outside his own country, functioning as an executive producer on the three Godzilla movies from Legendary Films.

CYBORG SOLDIER (2008)

 

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

Though I've rate this DTV film's mythicity as low, it's a reasonably entertaining low-budget action-movie.

One day border patrol cop Lindsey (Tiffani Thiessen of SAVED BY THE BELL fame) is driving down a lonelyy road, and she sees a strange man running along the road. She pulls the individual, one Isaac (UFC competitor Rich Franklin) over to check out his story, and promptly gets pulled into his troubles. Isaac happens to be on the run from a cadre of well organized hunters, and he's forced to drag Lindsey along with him so that the hunters won't turn her into collateral damage.

Isaac is actually a former death-row inmate, mostly amnesiac and genetically altered so that he possesses supernormal strength and reflexes. He's part of a research project into the making of super-soldiers, and the head of the project is a rich guy with the obviously evil name of "Simon Hart" (Bruce Greenwood).

Naturally, while Lindsey is forced into regular company with the naive "human weapon," she comes to sympathize with his plight and tries to teach him about life outside a research institute. But none of this keeps the film from keeping up the pace with the action scenes. There's a minor dramatic turn when Hart tells Isaac he was sentenced for killing his family, but you know these villains, always telling lies.

All three principals put in strong performances and the action is pleasing without being all that memorable.

THE ROBBERY OF THE MUMMIES OF GUANAJUATO (1972)

 

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

Since Santo, Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras had teamed up to fight some Guanajuato-mummies in a 1970 flick, apparently some producer decided to repeat the formula. This time Mil Mascaras gets to be the Big Cheese, while two lesser lights, Blue Angel and Rayo de Jalisco, follow him around. Since these lesser heroes had never appeared before, ROBBERY does not qualify as a crossover.

The title refers to the fact that some evil schemers "steal" the long dead mummies by bringing them back to life, so that they desert their musuem exhibitions in Guanajuato. However, I don't quite get why the filmmakers thought it important for the title stress the "robbery," which is over as soon as the mummies get up and leave. How about more time-approved terms like "RETURN OF" or "CURSE OF?"

As for the schemers, they are two guys who mostly stand around their HQ talking to each other about how commonplace people don't understand their sort of visionaries. One, Doctor Raymond, is a modern-day evil scientist, but his more flamboyant ally is an ancient, possibly mystic known as Count Cagliostro. The latter is played by Tito Novaro, who directed this film, also the only luchador flick in his directorial catalog, and he gives himself all the film's best lines. Two of the writers who worked on this film also essayed two related  vampire films of the sixties, BLOODY VAMPIRE and INVASION OF THE VAMPIRES, and the writers give those earlier flicks a shout-out by having Cagliostro mention Count Frankenhausen.

ROBBERY doesn't include nearly enough mummy-fighting scenes, though the few present are decent enough. Oddly, the evildoers also sic a bunch of killer dwarves on one of the wrestlers, who gets totally trashed by the mini-menaces. The oddest touch is that while the wrestler-heroes are tooling around trying to figure out what's going on with the stolen mummies, they're accompanied by four hot babes who aren't really explained. Are they girlfriends? Fellow members of the wrestling-gym? Camp-followers? The ladies aren't involved in any of the action, but they do spruce some of the duller scenes, which may be the only reason they were added.

HELLISH SPIDERS (1968)

 

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

Despite opening with a snazzy outer-space prologue trying to build up the awesomeness of the film's alien menace-- "brain spiders" from the planet Arachnea-- HELLISH SPIDERS proves to be a dull slog, thanks in part to director Federico Curiel just phoning the work in.

Inevitably the aliens come to Earth, and specifically to Mexico, looking for new brains to suck, and to do so, the spider-people transform into human-looking beings. The Blue Demon, who's the only heroic wrestler in this neck of the Mexican woods, learns of the ETs evil plans and engages with them in some tepid fight scenes. The hell-spiders are led by a rather dull queen (Martha Elena Cervantes) and one of her minions is played by familiar luchador-face Fernando Oses.

Only two scenes escape the general dullness. When Blue Demon and his companion observe a man burst into fiery nothingness, the wrestler gives a very learned lecture on how spontaneous combustion occurs due to neutrino breakdown. Later, when a hell-spider infiltrates the wrestling ring to kill El Demonio Azul, he makes a partial transformation-- that of his hand, which turns into a black spider capable of biting people. Maybe having a hotter spider queen would have sparked a little more enthusiasm in the filmmakers.

HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM (1959)

 

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

*SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*

I include spoilers to give the movie its due: not having seen it in thirty or more years, I didn't twig to the Big Reveal at the end. I don't really think the deduction is all that hard to work out, though, 

The movie opens with its most famous bizarre crime: a young woman receives gimmicked binoculars in the mail, and when she first uses them, they kill her. This is one of several strange murders that have plagued London for weeks, though we never hear about the earlier ones. Scotland Yard detective Graham (Geoffrey Keen) finds himself under attack by journalists, particularly Edmond Bancroft (Michael Gough), a crime writer with a penchant for writing about weird murders. In fact, he scorns the real-life "Black Museum" of Scotland Yard, having built his own private museum of crime-curiosities (including, oddly enough, a 1950s idea of a mainframe computer). He explains his penchant to his work-assistant Rick, a young man with a girlfriend, Angela, who's perhaps a little too nosy about Bancroft's activities.

Bancroft's weird habits make it pretty evident that he's involved in the crimes somehow, and for a time, despite his age, it seems possible that he's committing the murders while wearing a fright-mask, But no, it turns out that he's placed Rick under hypnotic control and is using him as a catspaw. Both "monsters" die when Rick leaps from a great height and lands on Bancroft, which image probably reinforces the opinions of those who read the older man/younger man dynamic as homosexual.

Though producer Herman Cohen claimed he got the idea for the film by reading about the real Black Museum, I think he was probably more inspired by the success of the 1953 horror-film HOUSE OF WAX. But Cohen, co-writer Aben Kandel and director Arthur Crabtree do a mediocre job with these slightly sleazy horrors. One character talks about "the poetry of murder" in a light-hearted manner, but poetry was entirely absent from the docents of this particular museum.

TWO ASSASSINS OF THE DARKNESS (1977)

 

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

ASSASSINS is another of many "kung-fu mysteries" in which the protagonists try to solve some puzzle in between wild martial arts battles. I won't say this sort of genre-blend can't be done well, but I haven't seen an exemplar that rang my chimes so far.

An unknown party summons not one but two professional assassins to the same town to kill a particular party. This circumstance breeds hostility between Dagger Kuan (Don Wong) and Chopper Hsiung Fei (Chang Yi), since whoever succeeds in the task is the one who presumably will get paid. Though Dagger and Chopper initially contend with one another, eventually they settle down to figuring out who's pitted them against one another. They meet a number of enigmatic characters, particularly Hua (Lung Chung-erh), a kung-fu female who pursues Dagger and tries to see whether he's amenable to being tied down. Wong's Dagger character does get the lion's share of attention over Chang's Chopper, since Dagger does get a moment where he reflects on the unpleasantness of his trade.

I frankly didn't pay close attention to all the characters thrown at me, as my main attention was focused upon sussing out ASSASSINS' qualification as a metaphenomemal film. At first this chopsocky seems barely qualified, as two other killers try to knock off Dagger by hitting him with wheeled carts with retractable knives. However, at the climax the two assassins, having been given various revelations by Dagger's teacher, find their way to the main villain, a white-bearded old guy (Shao Lo-Hui) who, for once, is NOT supposed to modeled after the familiar figure of Pai Mei. He unleashes the movie's biggest and most well executed stratagem: a dozen or so acrobatic fighters wielding ropes with metal claws on the ends, which they can also use to weave into a great big hero-trapping net.

Even though Dagger and Chopper are killers, they still seem like straightforward chopsocky heroes throughout the length and breadth of ASSASSINS. This is also the first movie I've seen in which Lung Chung-erh plays a somewhat villainous role, and she meets a bad end to boot.