Completist Guide to the Darkman series (1990-1996) Part 2

Darkman III: Die Darkman Die (1996)

Firstly, what a subtitle: Die Darkman Die. I love it. Secondly, Jeff Fahey plays the villain in this. Fahey's a fantastic b-movie actor and plays really good heroes and villains. For me, he'll always be Jobe from Lawnmower Man, who was sort of a hero and a villain.
  

Now the theory goes is that this film was meant to be filmed before Darkman II and there's certainly some evidence that backs it up. Firstly, the slightly longer skin formula Peyton developed in Darkman II is gone and we're back to 99 minutes. Secondly, it would make more sense, and more of a surprise, for Durant to come back for the third film rather than straight away. Apparently, Return of Durant was fast tracked once Larry Drake became available to reprise the role, which is a shame as I think Darkman III is the superior film.

Vosloo returns as Westlake, still living in his underground lab trying to perfect his skin formula, all the while fighting crime to fund his research. This time he's stealing from a new drug lord, Peter Rooker (Fahey). Meanwhile a female doctor who original helped Peyton when he was in hospital tracks him down. She offers him help to both reconnect his nervous system to return feeling to his body and offer assistance to extend his synthetic skin formula. Everything seems to be going great until the nurse betrays him to Rooker and Westlake is forced to take him down.

 

This is actually really awesome for a DTV flick. Without Durant and any ties to the original film this feels much fresher. Vosloo seems much more at ease playing Westlake/Darkman and it's nice to see some new faces. The writers of this (Mike Werb and Michael Colleary) went on to write Face/Off for John Woo almost straight after this and there's a lot of comparisons.
  

The best sequence of the film is where Westlake, disguised as Rooker, breaks into the crime boss's house only to be confronted by Rooker's estranged wife (played by Roxann Biggs-Dawson aka B'lenna from Star Trek: Voyager) and kid. The disguise fools them but because Westlake doesn't know their relationship is on the rocks he acts nice to the wife and tries to kiss her which makes her freak out. It's nice the writers have thought about an emotional scene to place Darkman in rather than just another action sequence.
  

That said this film does have some good action sequences. The most bizarre (and Raimi-esque) is one where Rooker's men track down Westlake's underground lab and he tries to make a getaway in his suped-up homemade train only for one of the thugs to fire a rocket launcher at him. Yep, Darkman cranks the train in overdrive and out runs the rocket. Nice.Fahey puts in a good performance as Rooker, chewing up scenery left, right and centre. And again Bradford May delivers a pretty glossy, fast paced film again. As previously mentioned this film ends on a weak note, promising further adventures which sadly never came. 
   

Television
  

What television you ask? Good point, there's never been a Darkman TV series but there was a 25 minute pilot that was made back in 1992, presumably before the DTV sequels got off the ground. There's a silent clip of footage on youtube or you can find the complete pilot on the bootleg market. It's a pretty grainy VHS copy with a lot interference but it's more or less watchable. It was never screened on TV but made for TV execs to decide whether to go ahead with a full series.
  

The copy I got does have sound but it doesn't really make the thing any more intelligible. The pilot re-edits some footage from the original movie setting up the story. Durant blew up Westlake's lab and now he has to take him down. It changes one key element – that Julie, Westlake's girlfriend, dies in the explosion where as in the film she lived and was a painful reminder of the life Westlake would never have.
  
Anyway, Darkman (played by Christopher Bowen) now lives in an abandoned observatory where he's continuing his research. Durant and his men still have the run of the city. Darkman disguises himself as one of Durant's men and kills him. For some reason, he decides to bury the body in a cemetery where he's cornered by a female cop Jenny who tells him he can't 'take the law into his own hands (TM)'. Darkman ignores her and leaves only to have to save her from Durant later on.

   Honestly I've never really seen unaired pilot before but this was really rough, even without the VHS grain. I can understand why the TV execs didn't go for it. Robocop – a comparable ultra violent film from the late 80s – did get his own dumbed down TV show but I can't see how you can do it with Darkman. He's horribly, graphically, stomach-churningly burned and scarred – no one wants to see that on TV. It would be far easier for someone to just do a show about an ordinary looking guy who disguises himself as villains (in fact the FX: The Series TV show did just that a few years later).
  From the pilot I can kind of see what they were going for. Durant was going to the big bad (played by Larry Drake again), Jenny was going to be his police liaison/voice of reason and the little kid was going to be his sidekick. Even so, I can see why no one touched this pilot with a barge pole.

 
Comic books
 
Marvel series: Marvel Comics picked up the rights to do an adaptation of the original film in 1990. The three issue series is pretty unspectacular, a basic quick run through of the movie. Not much more to say.
  

A year later they started doing a continuation of the series. Picking up a few months later Westlake is still stalking his former girlfriend Julie and fighting crime. Oddly a lot of the characters from the original film return. Eddie Black (aka the guy who gets all his fingers cut off in the opening scene of the original film) turns up, now with metal fingers that can shoot bullets – I kid you not. And more importantly Durant is also brought back from the dead, however unlike the film sequel he isn't quite the same. It seems the helicopter crash did kill him, in fact it decapitated him and a scientist brings him back with a detachable robot spider head. Yeah, it's all pretty freakin' weird and it only lasted 7 issues before being cancelled so it left a lot of loose ends.

  The most recent Darkman was a team-up comic with Sam Raimi's other famous creation Ash J Williams from the Evil Dead films in Darkman vs Army of Darkness. This is a pretty fun comic like most of Dynamite's Ash comics. Essentially Ash gets sucked into Darkman's world and brings with him a bunch of deadites. The two heroes at first don't get along but eventually put their differences aside to track down the Necronomicon and stop the deadite army. Once again Durant is dug up – quite literally – from his grave and brought back as a zombie general. It's a breezy 4 issue series that never gets bogged down. A must for fans of either series. Oddly there are also some covers floating around the internet for three issues of a Darkman solo series. These have never been printed but I'm guessing it was an aborted project at Dynamite.

 

Spin off novels
  
  Randall Boyll wrote the accompanying novelisation of the first film. God I used to love film novelisations – they just don't do that kind of stuff any more, except for a few high profile things like Star Wars. The book is okay – obviously it covers the same ground as the film – there's a few little bit of new info and background but nothing really major. Boyll's writing style is quite flat but it's pretty light as well so it makes for a fast read. A few years later (possibly to tie in with the DTV sequels) Boyll also wrote four continuation novels. One in particular, The Price of Fear, was an uncredited adaptation of one of the issues of the Marvel comic, involving a murderer who thinks he's a 17^th century Witchfinder General. It's pretty weird (can you see a theme here) and ends in a bizarrely gory way – Darkman rips his head off and uses the spurting blood to douse Julie who has been set on fire (sorry if you're eating while reading this). All in all, the novels aren't really worth it, Boyll doesn't really follow the same feel as the original film beyond some cursory elements. These novels are pretty hard to come by now but try ebay if you're interested.
  

Video game
 
As with a lot of films in the early 90s there was an accompanying 8 bit game by Ocean. The game has only a handful of levels. You play as Westlake beating up thugs on the street. The whole disguise thing doesn't really come into play except in some mini levels where you have to use a camera to take shots of a particular criminal in order to create a face mask. That's pretty cool but as games of that era go the rest is pretty sub-par.

 
Final word
  

So there, you have it. This is one series that has completely run it's course I think. The best you can hope for is that Dynamite will rethink about doing a solo comic series. I can't see a remake happening anytime soon – the original film's success was too dependent on Sam Raimi's style and they wouldn't do one without his blessing. Then again he does seem to be going ahead on an Evil Dead remake so maybe it will happen. 
  

Only thing I haven't mentioned is the awesome Darkman action figure by Movie Maniacs (still a lot of these floating on ebay). Excellent quality, swappable heads and brilliant detailing. If you buy only one piece of Darkman ephemera make sure it's this.

Completist Guide to the Darkman series (1990-1996) Part 1

Darkman (1990)

I remember being quite shocked when Sam Raimi got given the director's chair for Spider-man. At the time, I knew him only as the director of ridiculous over-the-top Evil Dead horror comedies. However viewing Darkman pulls everything into a bit of sharper perspective. Though not based on a comic book, Darkman's look and story pulls off a brilliant comic book atmostphere. Reportedly Sam Raimi wanted to direct a film version of pulp novel hero The Shadow but Universal couldn't get the rights, so instead he set about making his own original hero Darkman (who dresses pretty much exactly like The Shadow).

The plot sees Peyton Westlake a scientist who is trying to make synthetic skin for burn victims but struggling to come up with a formula that won't melt after 99 minutes. Westlake's girlfriend Julie accidentally takes a copy of letter implicating real estate tycoon Louis Strack illegal activities and leaves it in Peyton's lab. Strack sends crime boss Robert G Durant (Larry Drake) to retrieve the evidence, kill Westlake and blow up his lab for good measure. Westlake survives the explosion though, horribly scarred from head to toe and now has to repeatedly use his own formula to stay looking normal. Slightly mentally unstable he plans to kill Durant and all his men and get back with Julie. The fact that his skin formula can be moulded to give him almost anyone's face gives him a huge advantage as he sets about confusing Durant and his men into murdering each other.
Darkman is sort of the love child of Phantom of the Opera and Tim Burton's Batman. In fact the characteristically bombastic score by Danny Elfman covers a lot of the same ground as his Batman score. Luckily, this isn't too much of a detriment to the film. There's also a lot of similarities with Robocop with the whole disfigured hero returns 'from the dead' to avenge his own murder.

Liam Neeson is an interesting choice for the lead. He certainly has the cardigan wearing scientist look down but sort of seems out of his depth as a hero. As with all Sam Raimi films over-acting is the order of the day, but here it makes a lot of sense. Peyton's disfigured face and body hide an equally disfigured mind and psyche. They say a hero is only as good as his villain and Larry Drake as Durant is a very memorable one. Imposing, sadistic and with a penchant for cutting off people's fingers, Durant makes for some great scenes not least when Peyton's puts on Durant's face and goes running around town causing mayhem and making Durant look like a complete ass.

As mentioned Raimi directs the film with such a buoyant flourish that you never stop to think how bleak it all is. It sort of helps the film be much more palatable than it has any right to be but it occasionally works against it. For example the heartbreaking way Peyton tries to re-engage with his girlfriend, never plucking up the courage to explain how he's so scarred underneath the fake skin, never really works. Still at least the fact Peyton worries over the murders he commits at least makes him a more interesting protagonist than Charles Bronson in Death Wish.

Overall, this is a great film and a nice transition film for Raimi from his early splatter films to his more dramatic fare.

Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1994)

Darkman II is one of those films that requires a huge leap of faith. Remember that huge helicopter crash involving Robert G Durant, well he actually survived, albeit in a coma and with a small scar down his forehead. Okay, yeah it's a hokey retcon but being this film series is pretty much a comic book come to life we can't judge it too harshly.

Neeson goes and Arnold Vosloo (best known as titular character in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns) comes in as Peyton Westlake – now with a thick South African accent. It's a bit of jarring recast if you watch this and the original back to back but judged on his own merits it's perfectly fine. The script drops much of dark twisted mentally unstable characteristics of Neeson's version in favour of making him just an out and out hero.

So the plot revolves around Durant, who wakes out of his coma and sets out to do exactly what he did before, namely kill an innocent scientist in order to take over his riverside laboratory. This time he's not a sub villain but the main villian and rather than real estate his plan is to exploit gang warfare by introducing new laser weapons. Darkman meanwhile has relocated to an underground lab and is still trying to perfect his skin, stealing money from gang member to fuel his research. Inevitably, Darkman and Durant's paths cross and Darkman plans to finish him off for good.

This film's a lot of fun. It doesn't take itself too seriously, it doesn't tone down the violence, and it doesn't look too cheap. In fact, the director Bradford May, who also acted as cinematographer, does a great job, giving the film a great glossy, colourful look. As I said Vosloo does well as Peyton, he doesn't look a thing like Neeson but he's got some offbeat charisma. I think he must have got picked after he appeared in the Raimi-produced Hard Target, that came out the previous year. Another Raimi related actor/actress is Renee O'Connor (Gabrielle from TV's Xena) who plays a scientist's sister who works in a strip joint. Settle down though there's no nudity.
Using Durant as a villain does knock some points off this film. It's a double edged trade off. On the one hand it connects the film back to the earlier film and gives the sequel some continuity but at times it feels too much like a rehash. But having Durant torture and murder another scientist just feels really lazy. I mean does every warehouse at the river front contain nerdy scientists working on experimental projects.
Then again in Durant's favour no one can scream “Westlaaakeeee!!” as good as Larry Drake. He gets some great twisted scenes such as sending people off rooftops tied to golf carts. I'm going to cover the Darkman comics Marvel published in the early 90s later but the idea of reviving Durant was also played out there – in a much much different way. It's interesting to compare the two.

Darkman II plays itself much more as a straight forward comic book film. There's a little bit of quirk missing that Raimi brought to the original film. In the original, Darkman seemed genuinely quite mental unbalanced, as seen in the bit where he puts a tin funnel on his head and dances at his own reflection, whereas here he's more your classic brooding Batman-esque vigilante.

All in all, Darkman II is a pretty good follow-up to the original but probably the least of the trilogy – only because it reused the same villain and has a lot of the same themes as the original film. It might be quite a good experiment if you're new to the series to watch this last.

NEXT TIME: Darkman III, the TV pilot, comics and more!

Completist Guide to... The Maniac Cop series (1988-1993)

Maniac Cop (1988)
 

Maniac Cop is such a great b-movie title. First, it's provocative as hell and second it tells you everything you need to know about the plot. There's a maniac and he's a cop. I think what also attracts a lot of people to this film though is Bruce Campbell's name. Now if you don't know who Bruce Campbell is you obviously haven't watched any Evil Dead films. 

Campbell's no great actor but the Evil Dead films (particularly the second and third) were tailor made for his hammy but fun acting style.

In Maniac Cop he isn't given a lot of leeway and those expecting another out there semi-comic performance are going to be disappointed as he plays it very straight and he isn't the main character, at least not until about the halfway mark.

The story is your usual slasher horror with the same old back story. Matt Cordell (Robert Z'Dar) a decorated cop is murdered when he wrongly gets sent to jail, somehow he survived and now prowls the street in his police uniform killing innocent people left, right and centre. Campbell plays Jack, a rookie cop who happens to get blamed for the murders and must fight to clear his name and take down Cordell along with fellow cop Teresa (Laurene Landon).

It's a pretty barmy plot and it's soaked in that grubby 80s atmosphere. Z'Dar, a sometime stuntman and very intimidating figure, is great as Cordell – he doesn't say any lines but like Schwarzenegger in The Terminator he cuts an terrifying figure.

Great also to see Tom Atkins, a mainstay of a lot of early John Carpenter films, who sort of leads the film as a cop looking into Cordell's background. There's also a cameo by Sam Raimi, who directed Evil Dead, which is obviously a nice favour to Campbell.

The direction by William Lustig is competent but a little dull and muted and the action never really kicks in until the end of the film. Speaking of which, the film just sort of runs out of the steam towards the end and while I can see they were trying for a cliffhanger ending it just feels a little empty.

The script, co-written by Lustig and Larry Cohen, isn't too shabby but it seems like they could have had made the scenes of Cordell stalking his victims a bit more suspenseful and creepy. It's a cracking concept, usually in slasher movies, the victim will try and find a cop or authority figre to help only this time the cop is the killer leaving the victim with no one to turn to. And there's a great bit where one woman shoots an innocent cop because she thinks he might be the Maniac Cop.

There's also a little bit of Jaws-esque plot point where it's St Patrick's Day (not enough films are set during St Patrick's Day) and the mayor has to weigh up whether to cancel it in the wake of the maniac cop murders.

All in all, great premise but slightly lousy execution and Campbell's straightjacketed by being forced to play his role straight. Really his forte is comedy and he just doesn't cut the mustard as a straight forward lead.

Classic quote:
Frank McCrae: Whole city's goin' to hell. You can't take a pee anywhere anymore. 
 

Maniac Cop 2 (1990)

Maniac Cop 2 is where the series really hits a peak. Lustig returns and addresses the major problem of the original film by embracing the silliness of the premise. On the one hand it's a shame because I think you could do a really interesting serious film about someone killing people dressed as a cop. But on the other half you could do what this film does, and ramp up the action to extreme levels.

Campbell bows out of the film pretty early on making way for the new lead Det. Sean McKinney played by Robert Davi (most famous for playing the main villain in Licence to Kill and one half of the Fratelli brothers in The Goonies) and he does a pretty good job. I always like it when actors who usually play bad guy change tack and play a good guy for a change.

Laurene Landon also returns as Teresa to provide some good continuity between the two films. I've got to say this a pretty rare thing in b-movie sequels, usually previous leading characters are given off-screen deaths or just ignored. Again, the film nicely transitions from Laurene to our new female heroine Susan Riley, played by Claudia Christian (Cmd Ivanova from Babylon 5).

The centre piece of the film is massive shootout in a police station which again draws comparisons to The Terminator but here Lustig arguably creates an even better sequence by including a lot of wild stuntwork. This film is much more of a stunt filled action film than the comparatively sombre original. There's fights with chainsaws, people getting handcuffed to runaway cars and a finale that involves a helluva lot of people getting set on fire.

The film nicely doesn't just try to retread the original, a fellow serial killer Turkell (who isn't a zombie) teams up with Cordell. It's an interesting development but doesn't really go aware. The only downside is the ending is kind of weak compared to the rest of the film. Strangely, the hero and heroine don't really battle the maniac cop at the end, they are sort of just not involved which makes for an aloof ending.

That said this film is awesome for the majority of its short running time (about 80ish minute, perfect b-movie run time) and I'm not alone in thinking it. Quentin Tarantino once cited it as one of his favourite b-movies. Also, director Lustig said in an interview about the film: "It was the film [where] I felt as though myself and my crew were really firing on all cylinders. And I think we made a terrific B-movie".

Classic quote:
Sean McKinney: There's a piece of Cordell in every cop. Every time arresting some mutt isn't enough, because we know they'll be back on the streets before we even do the paperwork. Every time we pull a trigger and it feels good, because no lawyers can reverse that. It all comes down to justice and pressure. There's only that much difference between a cop and a maniac cop. 
 

Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1993)

Now Maniac Cop 3 had a bit of bad production history. You'll notice on some credits William Lustig and Joel Soisson are credited as co-directing the film. Soisson's an interesting figure in film, he's carved out quite a niche for himself making horror sequels for a lot of Dimension Films franchises; everything from The Prophecy to Hellraiser to Mimic to Children of the Corn to Pulse to Highlander. I've got to say he's not bad at crafting interesting DTV sequels; there's a lot worse producers out there. Anyway, the story is that at some point Lustig walked off the picture and Soisson, who was the producer, took over directing. I'm not sure how much is his and how much Lustig's.

Right down to the film, honestly it's a bit of a mess but not an uninteresting one. Sadly, Claudia Christian doesn't come back but Robert Davi's Sean McKinney does. I'm guessing the Dr Susan Fowler character is probably meant to have been Christian's Susan Riley character. 
 

The story doesn't really force a whole lot of Cordell but rather a hot-headed female cop Kate Sullivan who is shot during a convenience store hold-up and put in a coma. Cordell gets resurrected once more, this time by a random Voodoo priest (trust me there's very little explanation). Then in a bizarro left-field plot line Cordell goes to the hospital, kills everyone in his path and then kidnaps Kate with the implication that he is going to make her his bride(!).

I get what writer Larry Cohen was aiming for, a sort of homage to Bride of Frankenstein, but so much of the plot is just random and disjointed. Also the film flits back and forth between the horror of the original film and the action of the second when really you want it to pick one genre and stick with it. There's some very creepy bits with Cordell stalking victims around the hospital and an inventive (if sort of daft) bit where he uses an x-ray machine on a victim until they die.

There's also some sledgehammer satire/criticism of news reporters too; in a sub plot a news reporter deliberately re-edits some footage they captured of Kate during the hold-up that makes it look like she shot innocent people to boost ratings. It's a nice little sub plot that likely ties in to the Rodney King beating of 1991 and the debate on excessive police force and how it's reported by the news. I love that about Larry Cohen, like Roger Corman, he knows he's making trashy b-movies but he's not above trying to stick in a little bit of thought for the audience.

Even though Davi's character takes the lead again, he's given little for his character to do and much like the finale of MC 2, his role is pretty superfluous. Also like second film, there's a finale that involves the titular character being set on fire. However, I know I've got to be respectful that this is low budget, but the effects were horrible – the stuntman was clearly wearing a giant fire retardant suit and it sort of killed the illusion. I think they should have tried to rewrite the ending to something within their budget.

All in all, it isn't a terrible film, and at least they tried again to make an original film rather than rehash the same formula, but once again the film comes unstuck with the ending.

Classic quote:
Det. Sean McKinney: I can't imagine the kind of pain you feel Matt. I'm not gonna pretend to. But don't condemn her to the same fate. She deserves better. You cleared her. She's at peace. Let her go, Matt. Let her go.
Matt Cordell: *talking to the voo-doo man* "Finish it! 
 

Final word

So that's it for another Completist Guide. Final note is that rumour were around a while back that Lustig and Cohen were interested in a sequel or a remake (the latter sounding more likely) but things have gone quiet. In the meantime, in case you wanna see one last bit of Maniac Cop action check out this short film by Chris Notarile (an amateur filmmaker who does a lot of semi-pro shorts based on franchises).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAeb2u9jGxQ