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!