We already talked about Corman’s never (officially) released Fantastic Four movie at great length couple years ago. In this article we also mentioned at that time work-in-progress documentary from the writer/ director Marty Langfordshining a light on this fascinating subject.
… and this is a story of that movie!
If you don’t know the story- German producer Bernd Eichinger tried to get the right for a Fantastic Four movie in the early 1980’s and finally succeeded in 1986. He bought the right for non- glamorous price of quarter a million (remember those were the Dark Ages of Marvel adaptations). Now, unfortunately the rights were about to expire on December 31, 1992 and the movie didn’t even start the production.
Eichinger desperately asked for an extension from Marvel but he got none. So he did the only thing he could– he called B-MovieGrandmasterRoger Corman! Corman being Corman agreed to fast forward the movie and film it for just one million. And after all that effort the movie was never to be released with Stan Lee claiming it was never meant to be released at all (and it exists solely to extend the rights) with Eichinger and Corman claiming they seriously planned to have it released in the cinemas.
Whatever the truth may be Fantastic Four(1994) will not be released but the documentary Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four has a firm release date as of now! We can enjoy the crazy story of the FF on VOD in October 11, 2016 before it hits the DVD on December 20, 2016. Sing and rejoice!
The fact that many of his much younger coworkers started dying in last one year or so, didn’t prevent Roger Corman from continuing to make cult movies (more cult than movies truth to be told). Unexpectedly the most prolific B- Movie producer of all times decided to remake a remake of his own film, legendary Death Race 2000 (Stallone, David Carradine), now Death Race 2050!
The filming is underway right this moment in Peru staring surprisingly potent cast of Mannu Benett (Chronicles of Shanara, Arrow, Spartacus), Malcom McDowell (Clockwork Orange, Halloween, Class of 1999) and Yancy Butler (Kick-Ass, Hard Target, Witchblade).
“This is an amazing opportunity for me and millions of Death Race 2000 fans to experience the intensity, thrills and dark humor of the original, fueled by a terrific young cast, spectacular vehicles and side-splitting action, literally” said Corman.
This weekend after a great deal of drama, turmoil, re-shoots and rumors of director being removed from the final editing process new adaptation of Fantastic Four finally hit the big screen. As expected the reviews, one worse than the next started pouring in and after a while even the director Josh Trank decided to wash his hands of it and point the finger elsewhere. Box-office expectations went from 50 to 40 to 30 million (and F4 didn’t even menage to get that- it earned 26.2 mill. in the end).
As it often happens in this internet age in a less then a few hours new F4 became the most universally hated super- hero movie since 1997’s Batman & Robin (and that’s really saying something). Now as we lament another horrible attempt of adapting relatively straightforward SF/ Adventure comicbook let us remember another Fantastic Four adaptation, the one that never got to the big screen…
Setting some new records for comicbook adaptations!
Yes, we’re talking about Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four! And yes, Corman’s F4 is by the numbers, cheap B Movie adaptation but it still menages to keep most of the elements that make Fantastic Four, well- fantastic! Hell, with a bit more on the budget side and a tighter script it could have been one of better super- hero flicks of it’s day.
The same can’t be said for Trank’s F4, nothing could have saved that mess. Fox should have been smart and pulled the plug on it before it was too late. But, what’s done is done. Hopefully rights finally revert back to Marvel, they did pretty damn good when that happened with Daredevil.
We’ll begin this news bulletin by schooling you in Serbian royal history. Why would you EVER need that? Hold on tight, you’ll find out in just a second.
Princess Elizabeth Karadjordjevic is the only daughter of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia ( he served as a regent for his cousin King Peter II of Yugoslavia) and Princess Olga of Greece/Denmark. Her first marriage was with an American clothing manufacturer Howard Oxenberg and they have two daughters from the relationship- older being Catherine Oxenberg (Kатарина Оксенберг).
Catherine with her mother, Princess Elizabeth Karadjordjevic
Catherine started her career in acting with a TV movie about Charles and Diana and continued with TV show like mega popular Dynasty and short lived action spectacle that is Acapulco H.E.A.T. But in the end the most important thing that came out of her acting career was meting her future husband Casper Van Dien ( Starship Troopers and almost nothing else worth mentioning).
Still popular in Germany!
Naturally they collaborated on numerous projects including “I Married A Princess”. Now, they finally made the ultimate (B) movie together, third film in the SyFy series- Roger Corman produced Sharktopus VS Whalewolf!!! The premiere date is July 19, so mark it on your calendar.
So while you enjoy the historical showdown between the Sharktopuss and his new arch nemesis the Whalewolf pay attention to the Nazi looking scientist Dr. Reinhardt and remember- she is our royalty and yes, we apologize.
In the post- apocalyptic future all that is left of human race now lives in a desert wasteland of North Alaska?! Yeah, that’s right. A new form of government has risen from the ashes of the old world, The Ownership (and it looks kinda like a deadly combination of the American capitalism with German Nazism) rules the land with the iron hand controlling all that is left of the natural resources- quickly depleting supplies of Oil. That of course prompts the creation of various rebel factions and it all results in a seemingly never ending war. During one of the battles father of muscle bound silent type Slade (Richard Norton) is shot. Slade disobeys a directer order from his commander Colonel Lawton desperately trying to help him but in spite of all his toughness and Martial Art prowess he ends up knocked out and captured. It turns out Lawton was just waiting for something like that to happen. Jealous of Slade he uses the opportunity to pronounce him a traitor and a wanted enemy of the Ownership.
Norton menages to escape using his superior fighting skills but ends up mixed up in another fight when he helps the mysterious and rebellious beauty Karen (Caorinne Wahl). He ends up wounded and she drives him to her village.There they stop the bleeding and effectively save his life.As Slade recovers he plots his revenge. He fixes the legendary Equalizer 2000, gun made of many more guns and by default the manliest thing ever.
What a gun, what a man!
Lawton eventually founds out where Slade is (with a little help from the future Terminator alumni Richard Patrick). Norton decides to hold his own while village gets evacuated and Equalizer enables him to do just that. Karen insist of helping him and the two of them start wreaking havoc on the army of The Ownership. After sustaining significant loses Lawton decides that he wants that gun.Easier said than done thou.
Dynamic Duo!
After the short detour that consists of fight with Deke’s (Robert Patrick) men and a romantic evening with Karen Slade gathers up all the different rebel factions and takes the fight to the The Ownership themselves striking their fortress with all their might. Lawton uses the opportunity to kill his superior and take all the power for himself but as we learned power is nothing without the Equalizer.
Notice how the tribal rebels with bows and arrows can actually shoot better than those with guns.
After a hard and devastating fight Slade finally kills Lawton and people are finally free. Unfortunately his lady died in the process. Little bit shaken he goes back to his cool muscle car and rides away, presumably into some new and cool adventures.
Verdict: This movie is an all out balls to the wall action! It makes little to no sense but if there’s one thing you’ve got to admit- those Filipino exploitation directors (and Cirio H. Santiago a long time Roger Corman associate is a true veteran of that genre with over a 100 movies under his belt) sure knew how to film crazy ass car chases and explosion and that’s practically all there is to Equalizer.
Trivia: Now the real fun part is the mere fact that the main actor, Aussie Richard Norton actually managed to get a role in a new Mad Max movie (Fury Road) as a fight choreographer and one of the villains!!!I’m pretty sure it’s more due to his incredible Martial Arts knowledge ( he is an Okinawan weapons expert, one of the founders of Zen Do Kai Karate style and is also popular as a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and self- defense expert) and not due to George Miller’s being a fan of Equalizer but no mater how you look at it, it’s one hell of a Aussie Cinderella story.
Richard on the set of Mad Max: Fury Road, nothing has changed
Deathstalker IV: Match of the Titans is the final entry in the longest running Corman’s barbarian series. It also has the honor of being the only “official” sequel of Deathstalker being the only that acknowledges the first part ever happened.It also has the same lead actor (he was extremely unsuccessfully switched with John Terlesky and John Allen Nelson for parts 2 and 3) and we even witness a bit of his mystic sword power in the end.
Films starts with a nice mix of Deathstalker 1 and Sorceress footage to set the tone and then we cut back to lion-man (man with lion heads) chasing a beautiful woman. Of course they don’t get far as the Deathstalker apears. Now armed with a bow and arrow, cocky as always he starts killing them off one at a time. It also helps that his adversaries have the intelligence of an animal.He takes her off to her village where he hopes to find his friend Adelar.
Unfortunately it turns out Adelar left and that’s very bad because he has Deathstalker’s sword (of justice). You see- in the recent battle they accidentally ended up with each others swords (cue in the more Corman archive footage).Deathstalker gets on his way towards the Kana’s castle while we enjoy a bit more archive footage (this time we can place it as pillaging of the village from Barbarian Queen). Even stranger he runs into a medieval bodybuilder (80’s hair and all) and his earnest trainer- small mustached man. Also bodybuilder insist on running while other people ride horses, I don’t think that ended up working out for him…
With those muscles and mullet no one can possibly defeat him!
They run into some marauders attack the two girls and decide to help out. Unfortunately the warrior woman dies but at least Deathstalker menages to save her pretty blond sister.A lion man appears and menages to bury Deathstalker and Blond in a cave with assurance “you’ll never get out of here”. Strangely after a change of clothes- girl assumes her sisters warrior attire, they walk out of the cave without even trying. There’s something strange going on there. Also this is the first time I’ve ever witnessed Deathstalker being able to control himself confronted with a nude female body.
And everything worked out just fine…
They finally reach the castle to find premises are filled with all kinds of scum you can imagine- killers and muggers, barbarians and beast people and even a tribe of amazon- like lesbian warriors. Deathstalker also engages in an American Gladiator style test of strength just ’cause he can. Unfortunately Adelar is nowhere to be found. Kana shows up and announces the beginning of their new tournament. ‘Stalker starts making up with the blond with queen Kana calls for him so he switches his priorities.But they get into a bit of a fight and queen commands him to leave and then calls for a man “the bigger, the better… and drunk” in a comedic highlight of this film.
The blonde, Dionara menages to really piss off a leader of Amazons and they get into full blown chick fight. Duels continue with a new mish mash of archived sequel including my favorite- a barbarian Roberto Benigni betting brutally killed.
She sure knows what she’s doing…
Of course the bodybuilder and Deathstalker eventually get to fight one another and we find out (like people keep finding out to this day), bodybuilding is not the best “Martial Art”
Like I said…
Deathstalker suspecting something is wrong (with his friend still missing and all) decides to sneak around a bit and finds all kinds of interesting stuff like amazon orgies, raging pigmen and also some strange dealings of the Queen Kora (including poisinging men with her wine and doing strange stuff to them).
Queen enjoys watching porn in her free time, who knew?
Deathstalker and Dionara decide that the only way to trick queen is to send her an only person who’s not a drinker in the castle- a bodybuilder! Deathstalker also uses opportunity to teach him a lesson he might need- lesson in “ravaging” women. Strangely their plan works and he occupies the queen long enough for them to sneak in. They finally figure out her plan to make an invincible army using her magic wine to transform mighty warriors into stone obeying her every command. She almost gets to Deathstalker too but Dionara saves her using her amulet. He then proceeds to expose her evil plan an massive (for B- movie budget) battle ensues. Fight between her Russian sounding bodyguard, famed as the greatest warrior (yet so old he can barely move) and Deathstalker is a special threat.
Then we finally see that the Kora had Deathstalker’s sword all along. She tries to stop him with he magic but he burns her a bit and she suddenly dies- turning into stone herself (I have no idea how that works). Movie ends with a kiss between Dionara and Deathstalker (D&D right there) but Deathstalker runs away on his horse as soon as he has the chance.
Maybe a kiss could wake her up?
Verdict: Judging by the standards of Roger Corman production (cutting corners with ton of previously used footage ) Deathstalker IV is a solid entry featuring fun (if not particularly well done)action scenes, more than a few (intentional and unintentional) comedic moments and a fair dose of gratitude nudity needed for a watchable Barbarian flick.
Trivia: Maria Ford aka Dionara is Quentin Tarantino’s favorite B- movie actress. Who would have known.
Don’t let the title fools you… Apart of Lana Clarkson this movie has almost nothing to do with the first part. Sure it has some “borrowed” scenes, feminism, clear “all men are pigs” message but that’s where any similarity with the original movie ends.
The movie starts with Athelia (Lana Clarkson) receiving news about her father’s death on battlefield. But her father is not an ordinary man. He is the king of the realm. Her evil brother Ankaris (played by Alejandro Bracho) takes this opportunity to become the new king. Not a surprise since he looks like an evil version of king Arthur with large stick in his ass. Ankaris demands from Athelia to give him scepter which contains The Power and gives immortality. Purpose of the scepter is to guard king’s life (didn’t help him much as it turns out). Still, the body (or corpse if you will) of her father has not been found yet so Athelia refuses demands of new king. Ankaris throws her into dungeon in order to change her mind. “Why don’t he just takes scepter?”, you might ask. He can’t because it is protected with powerful spell (or so they say) which ensures that no man can touch it and use it without Athelia having previously removed protection from it. So, Ankaris sends his daughter Tamisa (played by Cecilia Twerina) to gain Athelia’s rust and trick her into releasing scepter. Tamisa is a little spoiled monster who is even more degenerate than her father. And she manages to fulfill her task. At least for a while. Being tired of chasing power, Ankaris decides to perform good old tirany instead of gaining immortality from the scepter. That means he doesn’t need Athelia anymore and sentences her to death. But, as it always happens in such situations, she somehow manages to escape while they were taking her to execution. While on the run she gets help from Ziela (played by Rebecca Wood) who is one of the nearby rebellious women tribe. Athelia joins her and couple of minutes after arriving at camp she had shown her intention to take over the tribe. You see, when provoked by tribe leader Erigena (played Orietta Aguilar) Athelis decides to show that she won’t put up with anybody’s shit. And which method she used? The only one that bunch women who aren’t getting enough (if you know what I mean) could think about – good old chick wrestling in a mud. No further talk needed. Enjoy the view.
While girls are getting dirty, men rape. It was always like that and always will be. So no surprise that soldiers wanted to have some fun in woods with daughter of peasant they intercepted. But not this time. Athelia and her tribe saved the poor girl, surrounded and killed soldiers (firstly I thought that they are going to rape them for a change) who are led by Ankaris’ right hand Hofrax (played by Roger Cudney). During that fight Erigena lost her life so Athelia can now officially become the tribe leader. Oh, and Hofrax got away (never kill one of the main vilains in first hour of movie).
In order to fight against evil king, Athelia will need to get more people on her side. Once again she ambushes Hofrax with a plan to free captured peasants who stood up against tyranny. Great battle commences with a lot of unconvincing, awfully choreographed fight scenes. This time Hofrax ends captured and tied to the tree. Athelia also captured her old friend from court Aurion (played by Greg Wangler) but she gives him much more hospitality than Hofrax. Unexpected sex scene between two of them is the best proof for level of hospitality. Yeah, all men are pigs but when itch between a legs begins, even an evil slave-driver will suffice. That’s what I call a hypocrisy. And just to make sure her hypocrisy stays unrevealed Athelia sends back to Ankaris both Hofrax and Aurion tied to horses and without pants.
It is Ankaris’ turn to move. Well, it should be his at least but all he does is getting insane and talking about how much he hates peasants. And during his hate speeches he sounds like the dentist from “Troll 2” movie. Anyway, Hofrax came up with the plan which will lure Athelia into trap. He is going to fake execution of her nanny Nabis (played by Carolina Valero), among with several real executions of PEASANTS! Of course, being a blonde as she is, Athelia falls into trap, gets captured and once again ends up on rape machine (remember that thingy?). Tho, it is not exactly the same one. It is moderated version for higher class perverts. And all of that with little Tamisa watching and enjoying.
Proved interrogation method
After struggle with his emotions Aurion finally decides to free Athelia from the dungeon. Just like that. There weren’t even guards to kill. So he frees her, she goes to scepter room (no guards there as well) and it looks like everything is going to be just fine. But no, Athelia went back just to be recaptured. And there we go again. She is back to rape machine. I really don’t know what was the point of this. Possibly they needed to chuck in something so the movie wouldn’t be too short. Anyway, this time Athelia got even more sadistic torturer than Hofrax. Who? Little Tamisa, of course. Tamisa puts her tarantula pet onto poor tied-up Athelia. With Aurion who took a role of voyeur this time. It is never-ending fun down there.
She got really hooked up onto this
Meanwhile, things are not seem to be all well on Ankaris’ side. They have received a message which informs them that the real king is alive and returning to his castle. So the real king is not dead! Long live the king! Aurion takes this opportunity to
offers himself to attempt to convince Athelia to give away her secret to them. Of course, nobody is suspecting him of anything, not even after he demanded to go alone. Naive bunch or master of delusions? Either way, we are watching Aurion release Athelia once again, tho now he had help of Ziela and Noki (clumsy daughter of peasant they have saved; played by Elizabeth Jaeger) who got infiltrated into dungeon (no guards outside either). Aurion goes back with them to their camp thus breaking the heart of Tamisa. Hm what do you know? She is got a heart after all.
Master spies
But Athelia is not the only one whose parents got The Power. Tamisa’s late mother also possessed it. It is not a scepter this time. It is amulet which Tamisa used to turn herself into hot chick and then infiltrate the rebel camp. Ha I bet you didn’t see that coming! It is OK, metamorphosis from little repulsive girl to full grown woman wasn’t the thing I wanted to see either, especially with special effects this movie offers. Anyway, Tamisa uses her new-found powers to control spider’s venom in Athelia to find out secret words for controlling scepter. She also kills Nabis (yeah, old bat joined rebels too) and sneaks into Aurion’s tent with intention of killing him. He wakes up in last moment and knocks her down.
If this movie was better this could have been a threesome
It is time for full scale attack on castle. Athelia leads a rebels and intends to use Tamisa as a living shield. But during the fight Tamisa escapes and goes to her father to tell him a secret words. Of course, since she had morphed, Ankaris doesn’t recognize her and stabbed her with his sword (BTW, that’s the only scene where we can see a blood on a sword). A couple of moments later he realized what mistake he made. Too late! And that’s when he completely descents into madness. Meanwhile, on the other side of castle, Athelia didn’t have much problems in defeating Hofrax in yet another terrible sword fight. Only one obstacle remains – her evil brother. But Ankaris didn’t give Athelia the pleasure of killing him. No, he did that himself by sticking sword into his chest all the way to it’s handle. I really doubt that anyone can commit suicide in such way. Unless he had impaled his chest just a bit and then used a hammer to nail the sword. Or falling on his sword repeatedly instead of hammering it. Since he was found laying on his back with no hammer to be seen around I afraid that ship has to sail off from this explanation. Anyway, battle is over, half-naked rebels have, Athelia gives another hearty speech and becomes a queen. Prosperity with simple peasants running country is guarantied.
Conclusion: This movie is so poor on acting and budget that it makes me wonder how it ever got made. The props look like they came from a local theater (and not a very good one for that matter). Weapons have been obviously made of plastic. Tho, it would be a real waste using a proper weapons on those awful and unconvincing fight scenes (unconvincing to “even 5 years old mentally challenged kid wouldn’t believe in this” level). And for nominally being a ‘fantasy’ movie, no actual magic was ever really seen. Director Joe Finley tried to improve overall impression by inserting nudity but even that wouldn’t help. There are soft-core porn with much better production values.
One more notable entry in the Barbarian genre of post-Conan boom of the early 80’s is (of course) Roger Corman produced Sorceress (1982). Jack Hill (Coffee, Foxy Brown), the director had an idea of combining The Corsican Brothers plot (two brothers able to feel each other’s pain) with the current Playboy centerfolds- sisters Leigh and Lynette Harris and (of course). And with a plan like that you just can’t fail.
Leigh and Lynette Harris in Playboy: MySisterMySelf(1981)
An extremely evil wizard desperately seeks his woman ’cause it’s time to sacrifice his firstborn to the evil god Caligara. Unfortunately for him it turns out he has twin girls. Confused over which one is the first born he kills his wife. Then the Kung Fu Jesus dude shows up and starts laying smack down on his warriors. Traigon tries to hypnotize him but his wife returns from the death and kills him with a knife- then she dies again. Trigon utters some ridiculous prophecy, something like “when the moon is in the house of the dragon once more I’ll come again”. Man, I really need to brush up on my Barbarian Horoscope knowledge.
He promises that he’ll raise children to became great warriors- then it turns out the children are girls, then he decides to still raise them to became great warriors. He kinda backs out on the promise using the magic amulet to bestow them with fighting prowess (something like Matrix before Matrix) and dumps them with some poor villager family so he doesn’t have to actually deal with them. Many years later sisters have grown up to be buxumy blonds that obviously enjoy swimming in the local river. A random and perverse looking Satyr sneaks up on them and they do a bit of their trademark Naked Kung Fu on him. They return to the village afterwards but find it completely ravaged. Knights in their eternal search for “two who are one” raped and burned everything. Twins menage to get there in time to kill couple of the knights but their adopted father and mother are already dead.
In the aftermath of the slaughter satyr again appears this time in company of the Viking?! And then Krona the Kung Fu Jesus appears again- now older and more resembling Kung Fu Moses. He empowers them with more of his knowledge and then walks into the fire and burns alive??? This is getting weirder and weirder.
“Going into the fire now, see you all later”
Their journey for vengeance takes them to the big city where you can find all the gamblers, thieves and murderers you can think of. Curly -haired barbarian prince Elrick earns a ton of gold by cheating and the rest of the gamblers tried to kill him. It all erupts into one big fight and our heroes of course end up in the middle of it. They naturally team up with a Barbarian Prince and somehow menage to escape. While in hiding we learn that twins don’t know the concept of boys and girls and that is why they are showing their boobs for no reason every two minutes. viking tries to explain them how things go but quickly gives up.
“Girls, what do you mean?”
Unfortunately the lady that kept them hidden betrays them to the Trigon’s soldiers and they capture the twins with a funny looking net that renders them helpless for some reason. Then they subject them to a cruel test to finally confirm which one is the first born but Viking and his new friend Barbarian Prince save them and they head directly to the forbidden forest where knight don’t dare to enter.Evil sorceress (finally I started to thing that the name of the movie was a scam), disciple of Triagon sends her ape servant to fetch them. He assumed command over the other monkeys in the forest and the bombed the intruders with something and they menage to capture one of the girls (Mara) along with a Barbarian Prince.
Apes are the girl’s best friends!
They almost impale the (naked) prince but decide to let him go when they learn of his origins. Then Sorceress offers Elrik to sleep with Mara and then sacrifice them and enchanted by her he accepts. Also we witness the connection between twins with Myra reacting to Mara having sex with Prince with an angry Viking commentating. The level of bizarre of this scene is impossible to describe with words.
The evil (but laughably pathetic) ritual commences while the Myra, Viking and Satyr attempt to storm the castle. Of course they fail but Trigion menages to offend the Sorceress’s ape and he gives Satyr the sword and swings odds back into favor of our heroes.Skeletons rise from their graves while sacrifice still drags on and in the end Mara gets saved and Sorceress ends up sacrificed- and reborn as a giant Witch head. Twins strike back by summoning Flying Lion creature using the power Kung Fu Jesus/ Moses/ Krona gave them and the rest is history.
Everything you ever wanted to see, Flying lion VS The Withchead!
Everything is fine again, especially for the Barbarian Prince who is looking to have some real fun that same night
Conclusion: Extremely stupid,yet bizarre and entertaining Sorceress is for a reason one of the biggest successes of Roger Corman’s production and it should be noted as probably the finest Barbarian film that he ever produced (rivaling with the original Deathstalker film).
Trivia #1: The director of the movie Jack Hill was crushed by the experience of making Sorceress. Roger Corman never delivered the promised budget so Hill was left to his own devices. As if that was not enough shoot in Mexico was plagued by deadly yin/ yang of rain and fire. In the end he took of his name off the Sorceress (replaced with “Brian Stewart”) and not only never worked with Roger Corman again but never talked to him either. Ironically film became somewhat of solid hit for Corman production earning as much as 8x it’s budget.
Trivia #2. Leigh and Lynette didn’t really succeed in following up the success of the Sorceress (their only role afterwards were as rape victims in I,the Jury) but they did menage to earn millions by having threesome with an extremely wealthy old man over the period of four years. They eventually went to court because of it, as you can see in this article.
Now, when you say MARVEL movie you are probably thinking of mega successful Iron Man trilogy or even more successful The Avengers but the truth of the mater is- Marvel movies were laughing stock of ar movie industry for years. Between barely animated cartoons, horrible TV shows (Spider-man and Hulk I’m looking at you) and occasional low- budget disaster it took couple of decades and New Line Cinema’s Blade (featuring minor comicbook character) to turn the tide. After that FOX decided to put some money into making of X-Men and Spidey franchises and the rest is history.
And now we get to what interests us, the most obscure thing from the Dark Age of Marvel Movie Universe- The Fantastic Four! No, not FOX’s Fantastic Four from 2005 (although that’s kinda bad too) but original Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four from 1992. You never heard of it? Strange- because trailer was attached to your copy of Carnousaur (and don’t tell me you don’t have VHS/ DVD of Carnosaur please). Anyway, the only reason for this film’s existence is the fact that the company that owned movie rights to FF, had to make a movie of forfeit that rights. They didn’t really feel like spending a bunch of money of a comicbook/ SF flick but they still wanted to keep rights (’cause you never know)- so they decided to play it smart and hire Roger Corman to produce incredibly lo-fi version of film (without ever telling him that they don’t really plan on releasing it, like EVER).
So this came down in history as the only Corman film never released but the producer made a deal with MARVEL, they agreed to pay for the movie (securing it never sees a light of day), ended up with a profit of few million and everybody walked away happy. Except for Corman, who’s still pissed about it. Of course bootleg copy eventually find it’s way online and you can finally uncover the mystery of Fantastic Four right here on WM.
Movie starts with young Reed Richards and his best pal Victor Von Doom (who wouldn’t want a friend with a name like that) breaking into some science facility (by all accounts located on their campus) and using the passing of a comet for some kind of god awful experiment. Of course as things go awry and Doom gets electrocuted and seemingly dies. This shutters Reed by somehow he recovers in no time. Then we find out that he’s living in a boarding house with a mother of two young children Sue Johnny Storm (interesting).
We flash forward to the future- the 90’s (yes the 90’s)! Reed and his new pal Ben Grimm (hope nothing bad happens to this one) are finishing up work on some experimental, crystal powered space- craft. They need skills astronauts to accompany them but Reed being genius that he is decides to take his old friends the Storms for a ride! Now imagine this- strange man that lived in your place in his collage years comes out of nowhere one morning and offers to take your children (now teenagers) to space! Just because. Mother being stupid enough to give housing to this dangerous man accepts to help him potentially kill her children and all is set to go.
“FANTASTIC FOUR”
Reed being a cool cat that he is, dedicates the mission to his “dead” friend Doom and off they go. Spacecraft malfunctions because the Jewler (knock- off of more famous FF villain Mole Man) steals their fuel- the crystal and replaces it with a cheap knock- off ( how appropriate). Not only do they crash land (which is strange because the ship clearly exploded to pieces)- they menage to get seriously irradiated by “cosmic rays”. Somehow they survive and soon they discover they’ve been mysteriously granted an amazing powers.
Now I see you, now I can’t!
They don’t really get to explore their new found powers because they end up captured by Victor’s man. They eventually get the hang of their powers enough to escape them and regroup back at their base- the baxter building! Only Ben Grimm decides to leave horrified with the fact that he became a rock monster (probably the only decently done FX job in the whole movie). Next we see the Thing staggering the streets, seemingly trying to score a hooker (not sure that could end well).
Thing and his new lady friend
Doom confronts the Jewler because he needs the crystal to finally capture the power of the comet (he still can’t get that behind him after all these years). It turns out he gave the jewel to blind artist Alicia Masters (who he also lovingly kidnapped to be his bride). Now Alicia is of course not impressed with Jewler and his horde of underground dwelling hobos- she likes Ben Grimm even thou he destroyed some of her artwork (or maybe even because of it). Doom, angry, seizes the diamond for himself and threatens to kill Alicia, and then out of nowhere Grimm comes barging in trying to stop him! …and the (I kid you not) HE REVERTS BACK TO HIS HUMAN FORM! You know, the form he can tragically never reclaim! It his one movie Corman and co destroy the whole concept of this truly compelling character and made him into the Hulk Lite (and as Coca Cola Light showed us- nothing Lite is ever good).
Doom is a Gangsta!
Anyway, he menages to Thing- out again couple minutes later but it’s already too late. Doom captures him, the girl and takes them with the famed crystal back to his home country of Latveria in Eastern Europe. He must have had some superior means of transportation because they are in his castle in about a minute- already draining the Thing of his cosmic power. This already looks a lot like the original incident that nearly killed him- but some people never learn. The rest of a Fantastic Four decide is the right time and after they get themselves a nifty costumes they come to save their peer.They kinda fail, at least at first and get captured (and drained ofc). Mr. Fantastic finally uses his elongating powers to escape and bring fight to Doom. What’s fascinating is how Doom with all that might and resorses (coupled with scientific brilliance) still uses and old fashion gun- a luger pistol as his primary weapon.Then doom launches the rocket that could supposedly bring the end of the world as we now it but in scenes ripped directly form old Fleischer’s Superman cartoons from the ’40 Johnny Storm now Human Torch stops it.
Directly lifted from Superman: The Mad Scientist (1941)
In the final Doom decides to commit suicide just to further torture the Mr.Fantastic, who doesn’t seem all that bothered and soon marries his sweetheart Sue and presumably lives happily ever after.
Verdict: People complain that super-hero movies of today (notably Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and Snyder’s Man of Steel) are too dark and grim, too serious but God damn imagine if comicbook movies reverted back into this- now that would be a true horror!
Trivia 1: The legend of this movie became so big that it finally got it’s own documentary DOOMED: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s “The Fantastic Four”. You can see the trailer bellow.
Trivia 2: Depending on who you ask, our country Serbia is a neighbor/part of Latveria, the land on evil genius and monarch Victor Von Doom.You can see the proof straight out of Secret Avengers comicbook (by Warren Ellis and Alex Maleev) right here.
During this (Barbarian) month we covered a wide range of Sword and Sorcery flicks and as you noticed nearly every single one of them was a rip off of ‘s Conan The Barbarian. Well, not this film!
This movie is a rip-off of Kurosawa’s legendary Yojimbo! Literally you just take Yojimbo, change a setting to the desert planet of Yura, replace fantastic Toshiro Mifune with less than fantastic David Caradine , add some bad creature effect , a four breasted stripper and sparkle it all with a doze of acid and voila- you get The Warrior and the Sorceress!
Disclaimer: David Caradine looks nothing like this mighty dude!Disclaimer 2: Woman with an extra set of breasts has only a small cameo !
A hooded warrior (Caradine) arrives in the town. Right off the bat we see the half- naked sorceress Naja (Maria Socas) being tortured by one of the gang members. He quickly decides to cause the commotion in this case by fighting the knights guarding the city’s well. As you can guess they prove no match to his (caugh, caugh) Kung Fu skills. Left unguarded well gets overan by villagers making the leaders of both city’s clans extremely unhappy.
Just look at those bare legs of Caradine, the sign of the real Warrior!
With his reputation preceding him The Warrior visits the first of the clan leaders, the fat man. Dude looks like a giant bold baby, surounded with naked women and his personal assistent
the Lizardman (who’s by all accounts- a hand puppet)*. They strike a dead right there and then and Caradine walks away with a … of gold. in the meantime… Fat man’s cometitor is trying out a sword made by the priestess. She promised to make a sacred sword of Yura for him, sadly she did not deliever and was imediatly returned to the her cell.
Man’s best friend- his lizardman!
Soon the two sides confront each other in the city’s square. Caradine, a supposedly big asset to the fat man decides to sit this one out and completely changes the complexion of the fight. But just as thing were starting to heat up the slave-owners entered the city gates. As they all love slaves they stop what they’re doing and start biding with the monstrous slave-owner Burgo. After a fine day of selling and buying the slave-owners dance the night away. But little do they know that the Fatman and his trusted lizard poisoned Burgo’s wine in an attempt to frame their competition aka the mighty Zeg. Things seemingly go as planed ad the scaly slaver prophets his revenge with the brilliant words “gather our army and avenge out deaths”. Hopefully he dies at that instant, that would be cool.
He doesn’t look too good, does he?
Dark Warrior seeing all that goes staight to Zeg and offers to sell an information. He explains fat man’s scheme to Zeg, takes some gold and then start roaming around the castle. He finds the Sorceress in the dungeons. She starts rambling something about the secrets and prophecies and then finally agrees to come with Caradine. He starts cutting through soldiers with his usual ease and they succeed in escaping. Next thing Warrior does is almost unforgivable, he steals the (fat) man’s best friend, his lizardman and delivers him to Zeg.What follows is the exchange Sorceress for Lizardman and we finally start to wonder does the Warrior have a plan or is he just enjoying fuckin’ with everyone (and getting rich in the process).
Because of all the stuff he (seemingly) did for him the Warrior is invited to the grand feast at Zeg’s place but uses opportunity to AGAIN free the Sorceress (and kill a ridiculous tentacled monster but the less said about that the better). He plays dumb and continues the drinking at a main table but this time Zeg’s got a surprise for him! Yeah, the main selling point of this movie a stripper (backed with techno soundtrack), but not just any stripper, a four boobed stripper!!!
Just in case you find yourself in this kind of a situation…
Scenes with her are so funny and absurd that they almost make this mess worth a while. Ending her act she attacks Caradine and he chokes her to death but not before she poisons him.For some reason they do not kill him right there and then but they chain him and put him in the cell.
Let’s celebrate our new-found partnership!
Then Zed offers an alliance to the fat man which he jolly excepts. when they hug to celebrate he stabs him to death and finally succeeds in reaching the complete domination. Unfortunately just as he was at the top of the world the bunch of lizard-like slavers launched the attack on his army. Naja, the Sorceress frees the Warrior with Caradine’s help finally forges the magic sword of Yura and using it they lead a rebellion against the powers that be- in this case the Slavers. Warrior suddenly appears leading the villagers and then… does what he always does, funny circular motions that are usually supposed to represent Kung Fu. The power of the mighty sword of Yura that we waited to see entire film is… NOTHING AT ALL. The damned sword doesn’t even have cool sound effect that goes with it and doesn’t seem to help Caradine the slightest. He even menages to loose it half-way into the fight with Zeg’s former general and still win fairly easily. Damn, that Sorceress is an incompetent bitch!
David Caradine + Sword of Yura = Everyone dies
After massacring every last Slaver and all of their human underlings (with minimal help from the villagers) Naja tells him “to holy victory” * which is supposed to mean something but it doesn’t. Being the cool cat that he is he leaves them all and walks into the sunset into new adventures that thankfully didn’t get filmed or captured in any way.
Yeah, hi to you to!
Verdict: Idea a of Samurai film by the way of of SF/ Fantasy seemingly has some potential but that potential is mostly wasted. Caradine seems to be having a good time and feels constable in his role but the fact is he made his living by acting martial artists and never bothered to learn any and that completely undermines all his effort. If you want to be a convincing warrior in a Sword and Sorcery flick you need to look the part/ or have some serious sword-fighting skills and truthfully (ignoring the man’s significant cool factor) he really had none. Also the movie is considered one of the most violent and bloody barbarian flicks and that may be true but the doesn’t make silly action scenes any better. The only thing that separates this movie from the rest of the pack is the presence of four-boobed stripper and mind0 boggling weirdness of her scene is the only thing worth watching in this film.
Knowing how cheap Corman is, this girl probably had real four boobs, I can’t imagine him paying to get them made…
Trivia: When the director of the film John C. Broderick originally read the script he called Corman and said that he couldn’t do it because movies was not based of Yojimbo but an (almost) straight scene for scene rip- off. Corman said that the same was true of The Fistfull of Dollars and that Leone had no trouble because Kurosawa used an American book Red Harvest as a model for his film- so there is no real original. He got Broderick to direct but that statement was of course a blatant lie- because Leone was sued and forced to pay compensation to Kurosawa for remaking Yojimbo without his knowledge. Thankfully for Corman almost no one knows of existence of The Warrior and the Sorceress so he’s safe… FOR NOW.
… and this is a story of that movie!
Worsemovies 