Posts Tagged ‘The Bride of Re-Animator’

The Immortalizer aka Dr. Divine (1990)

Posted: 30/10/2017 in Trash movies
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Now, The Immortalizer is one of those rare B-movies that actually has a great basic set– up with  tons  of potential (even thou it did exist before, at least since the The Atomic Brain) but movie makers (veteran Joel Bender, editor on Power Ranger: The Movie) never got to actually follow it trough. What we got instead was a mess of a movie that follows a crazed doctor and his endless brain- swithings procedures,  often  with a hilarious results– a film like that would feel more at home among the SF movies of the 50’s. It would have been interesting to see what would have someone like Carpenter, author with a clear vision  done on the same budget with the same basic idea, but that’s not to say we didn’t have tons of fun with what we got, ’cause we sure did.

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Who wouldn’t trust a man with a face like this?

The movie starts with a Dr. Divine (Ron Ray) with a crazed look in his eyes injecting the screaming blonde woman with green, florescent liquid (where have I seen this before). Remember this, ’cause it will be (semi) important later.

We now jump to a couple of high- school students (brothers Gregg and Darrell) having fun with their dates (movie and pizza).  They can’t really come to an agreement which one get to sleep with which of the ladies but unfortunately for them they don’t make it that far anyway- not by a long shot!  They should have known that going straight into a dark alley is never a good idea, especially if you’re in a horror movie!

Now you would expect some kind of criminal or a junkie to attack them but no- it’s actually a monster? Some sort of zombies jacked up on steroids!? Man, I would shit my pants too If I ever saw something like that. Even the regular living death can be enough trouble as it is ,not to mention these obviously performance enhanced ones! Now good for them, police actually hears them and shows up (well, just one  cop but still)- but to no avail! All four of them end up kidnapped- cop didn’t even get to be that lucky, zombies throw him onto a brick wall and henchmen then proceed to decapitate him with the wheels of their van (man, that’s a nasty way to go).

Darell wakes up in the private hospital with the rest of the gang still sedated. He hides in the corner hoping no one will notice him. That doesn’t really work out.  Then when he finally runs for it he manages to alert half of the patients. He finally manages to escape by  jumping out a window and for some reason he tries hiding in the car of one of the doctors. He ends up up in a scrap with that doctors and the security too but he makes it out and jogs straight for the Sheriff ‘s Office. He may be dumb as f*@k but Gregg is in great shape.

Unfortunately for him the Sheriff’s Office is completely empty (I’m sure there are regulations against just that) so he calls the Sheriff the only way he knows how- by throwing stones and activating the alarm!? Man, he’s dumb- for sure there’s an easier way to do this. Sheriff then arrives with a record timing. He concludes the only logical thing– that the boy is on drugs and forces Gregg to spend a night in a jails cell. Man, this is really not his night.

Finally the Sheriff arrives to the sheriff’s station? Did he have a more important place to be?

In the morning the Sheriff finally listens to him and he  takes him to Dr. Divine’s place where they deny everything. Desperate Gregg manages to dupe the Sheriff and he runs away again. He then proceeds to recruit the old lady from the Dr. Devine‘s neighborhood (I guess she always suspected something). And you shouldn’t underestimate that lady- the  amount on weaponry she has in her place is unbelievable! 

Now, we see Dr’s goons playing with the zombies and they are christening the newest one Quinnie. Not only is this hulk of a woman the same lady from the beginning she is actually played by a minor celebrity- Bodybuilder and American Gladitator: Zap–Raye Hollitt She is also interestingly a former wife of our WM alumni Ted Prior (Deadly Prey, The Final Sanction, Aerobicide).

Head Nurse is jealous and she desperately wants the body of the redhead that was promised to the rich,  irritating grandma. She even went as far as to “damage” her just so she can keep her. Bodies seem to be nothing but kid’s toys to these king of people.

In the end the rich old lady is beyond herself with joy (even though she got a blonde replacement and not original  redhead she wanted). Also we have to note that she kept her old woman’s voice even in this new body. How is that possible- I have no idea!

Now grandma infiltrates the compound but then the goons fuck things up by electrocuting zombies and the whole hell breaks loose.  Nurse uses opportunity to cheat on her husband with another Dr. this one. In the meantime the head nurse is cheating on her husband Dr.Divine with another doctor  who looks a bit like current president of USA Donald Trump.

Hilariously when Gregg finally catches Dr. Divine he is no longer he– you see he switch brains with the young Dr. and in this moment we really have no idea who’s who– and who has his original brain in the original body.

Fighting his way out of the house Gregg manages to save the redhead but Dr. meets his destiny via zombie and meatgrinder- nasty as it gets. But what happened to our  benevolent Dr. Divine you might ask? Well, three months later we see him (in his young man’s body and his old man’s voice) welcoming another client so I guess for his- it’s business as usual.

Verdict: Interesting thing to note, highly acclaimed Horror by Jordan Peelee Get Out uses the same “transfer of the brain” The Immortalizer set up, abelt with more of a social commentary and with a lot more attention to detail (it actually manages to sell its fantastical medical procedure to the viewers) and that showed just how great the idea really is- if you can make it work. But like they say- the devil is in the detail.

 

This movie in the nutshell

And despite all the parallels with the Gordon/ Yuzna franchise (glowing, green liquid we’re looking at you) the good Doctor aka Jeffrey Combs himself would have actually been perfect casting for this movie. His dead pen yet quirkie delivery would have elevated this kind of material into something a lot more meaningful. Unfortunately we are left with Ron Ray as a Doctor and he is fun but nothing more than that. But you never know what they’re going to remake next- so there might still be a chance.

 

 

Doctor Mordrid (1992)

Posted: 17/03/2014 in Trash movies
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At certain point in the 90’s Full Moon Entertainment (Demonic Toys, Dollman) had the rights to make Marvel’s Doctor Strange. Remember, those were the days when Marvel movies were made by people like  Corman or even better Pyun. Anyway they had the right for Dr. Strange, but NOT for long. Marvel’s license expired before the production officially began and instead of paying for extension producer  Charles Band decided to just go ahead with it. He cleverly removed mustaches and renamed his hero Doctor Mordrid leaving everything else virtually identical to the original script (and comicbook).

Movie starts with Mordrid (legendary Jeffrey Combs) talking with space eyes, we have no idea what the hell is happening. Then it jumps to Rio de Janeiro just in time for us to witness the evil Kabal (always fun Brian Thompson) in medieval regalia with hip 90’s sunglasses.He chants some complicate gibberish but his fantastic baritone (he sounds like Schwarzenegger who miraculously lost an accent and gain acting ability) makes it sound cool. His fledgling killed  a man transporting some sort of (mystical?) goods and the chant made it disappear into another dimension (with 90’s style drawn electricity- painfully  absent in today’s films)

Doctor Mordrid_2avo_[torrents.ru].avi_000154988Hello Space Eyes!

And we’re back to Dr.  ̶S̶t̶r̶a̶n̶g̶e̶  Mordrid’s lair full of arcane books, mystic artifacts and TV’s for some reason? He seems disturbed from his astral projection and  easy listening music and goes out to find what’s happening. It turns out some neighbors (he lives in an apartment building?) are having argument about a dog. Police woman with big hair (who also lives there) Sam seemingly resolves things and Mordrid exchangers couple of words with her and then flashes her with his amulet and she forgets everything. Watching Mordrid’s TV collection we learn that the shipment that was stolen was platinum and that rings a bell with Dr. We also learn that his raven is appropriately named Edgar.

Mordrid uncovered magic ball and uses it to summon a gateway that takes him to the another world and… the flying fortress (and that’s all we see of that mystic world). He almost gets killed by a keeper Gunner but it turns out they are old friends. It tuns out he was blinded while the others were killed during the Kabal’s escape. Gunner still stayed weak as he is to keep others locked and by others I mean demons from the other dimension. He returns to his apartment just to find out that his neighbor police woman called the firemen. She was snooping around and saw the smoke coming from his place. He finally gives up and invites her in.

Doctor Mordrid_2avo_[torrents.ru].avi_001244993

In the meantime we are presented with bloodsucking, terrible pair of satanist- one of them a lady satanist who enjoys singing disco hits and dancing appropriately. She hopes to score with  Kabal but he decides to sacrifice her instead.

It’s Satan’s Dance!

Feeling particularly powerful he uses astral projection (sorry- it’s called transportation of the soul here) to taunt Mordrid. They get into a  confrontation of sorts but without some terrible ramifications but soon enough police comes to arrest Mordrid,  it turns out the symbol from his amulet is found on some dead bodies and he becomes  prime suspect. During the interrogation he tries to explain that the evil alchemist is behind both the murders and also the stolen plutonium but they kinda don’t believe him.

Doctor Mordrid_2avo_[torrents.ru].avi_002434056“Kabal’s intentions are worse than evil!”

Sam, the police woman drops by to check on him and he shows her the visions of his childhood. He also uses the paper napkin to hypnotize her.We see the rivalry of the Kabal and Mordred since they  were kids, and gain all we see of the other world is the flying castle- they really should have filmed something else too (it gets really old, really fast). Sam accepts to steal his amulet and help him  escape but Satanist number two shows up (with the enchantment of indestructibility)and just when you expect a ruckus nothing happens. Yeah, Satanists are just that stupid. Sam freezes time and gets Mordrid out. Mordrid does the next logical thing, he decides to falls asleep aka project his soul in the middle of the park and Sara stays to watch over him. Kabal breaks into the Metropolitan Museum and steals the philosopher’s stone who’s sole purpose is in fact being the cauldron for cooking all the alchemical stuff.

Doctor Mordrid_2avo_[torrents.ru].avi_003628082Today in cooking with Kabal!

Just when you though he finished cooking Mordrid (aka his soul) appears and they start the spell- war that escalates into a dinosaur skeleton vs mastodon skeleton finale. Then when you expect something really impressive to happen mastodon impales Kabal, stops the demon invasion from another dimension and everything is fine again.

Yeah, also Satanist tries to kill defenseless Mordrid but being stupid but his powers stop working and he almost gets killed. The movie ends with melancholic Sam celebrating Christmas, getting drunk with Edgar the raven… when Mordrid mysteriously shows up from the another dimension and new adventures are ready to begin! Unfortunately we won’t see them.
Verdict: Like many other Full Moon features this one also suffers from the lack of the third act, and I don’t mean like in the John Rambo (purposely extended second act), I mean more like Bakshi’s Lord of  the Ring where you can just see that they run out of budget and abruptly ended the movie without real climax or resolution.

On the plus side Jeffrey Combs’s overacting fits perfectly with the theme of this movie and his literally chewing scenery. Too bad the movie is not up to par.  I would really love to see Combs more often as a leading man (outside of Re-Animator franchise).

Trivia: For a (very) short while this movie was called Doctor Mortalis and Band even managed to bring in the legendary Marvel artist Jack Kirby to do some concept drawings. Unfortunately that didn’t continue (wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he run out of money to pay him- wouldn’t be the first time).

DoctorMOriginal Kirby sketch for Dr. Mortalis

Worse News: Nevermore (directed by Stuart Gordon)!

Posted: 17/10/2013 in Worse News
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NevermoreHynesJeffrey Combs is NEVERMORE? Right on!

Just as we were talking about the genius that is Jeffrey Combs we found out about a new and exiting project featuring non other than Mr. Combs himself.  The project is low budget biopic of Edgar Alan Poe that reunites Mr. Combs with his Re-Animator director Stuart Gordon! The only thing missing is the producer Brian Yuzna (but I wouldn’t be too surprised if he showed up too). They started the campaign on Kickstarter some days ago so if you want to donate and make this film a reality you can do that right here, right now. Campaign fittingly ends on Halloween.