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The Middle Man reviews Roger Corman's "Black Scorpion" series ((includes images))
Glen here...
...with another review from THE MIDDLE MAN.
Regular Coaxial readers may remember THE MIDDLE MAN from his advanced reviews of
Farscape and
The Secret Adventures of
Jules Verne, both of which previously appeared on this site. Now, THE MIDDLE MAN
is turning his attention to a babe filled Roger Corman opus named Black Scorpion. Uncharacteristically, an entire season of this series has already been filmed, the whole of it is currently being shopped around to potential distributors (people who wanna show it).
I had trouble with a scorpion once. I had put my little boy down for a nap in his room while
waiting to leave for a mid-afternoon appointment. After he'd been asleep for a few minutes, I
wandered back into his room to collect some dirty clothes. What followed was one of those
illogical, priceless, "parent moments": he just looked so peaceful and cute and snugly in bed, I
decided to curl up next to him for a few moments.
I fell into a very deep sleep.
About thirty minutes later, I feel someone gently shaking my shoulders. Not really interested in
waking up, I attributed this to one of those freaky involuntary muscle spasm / convulsion things which
sometimes happen when people are falling asleep. But muscle spasms don't have voices.
"Daddy - wake up" said an impossibly soft, almost ghost-like whisper. It was my little son.
Somehow, this sunk into my instinctive sub consciousness, and I began to crawl my way out of
an extremely relaxed rest. I managed a quiet "What is it?"
I don't know..." he offered. Then silence, as if he was considering something. This became
alarming. "Don't move daddy."
I thought a little more. Either the kid has gone insane and pointed a gun at my head, someone
else has a gun pointed at my head, I have somehow managed to roll onto a cliff face during
my sleep and am now teetering on the edge of an abyss, or...
My eyes snapped open, but I remained frozen. After a few moments, I felt a tingling movement
across my stomach - like a feather being run across my torso. A whopping chill ran through my
body as I realized this was, most likely, a really lousy circumstance. Without moving my body, I
contorted my neck so I could glance down the length of my body. There, doing some sort of bizarre
little happy dance around my naval, was one of the biggest scorpions I had ever seen. Big enough to
grab an F-16 in its pinchers. Big enough to kill an elephant. Actually, it was about half the length of
my pinky finger. But I have a long pinky finger!
For a moment I was frozen in amazement - I wondered what would happen if I laid there long
enough. Would it leave and never come back? Would it use its scorpion telepathy (which they must
certainly have) to call its little scorpion friends in for some sort of wigged-out orgy on my chest?
Finally, my mind turned to tactics: how to remove this little beast from my body without being torn
to shreds by its evil ugliness. Before I had a chance to act:
The scorpion looked up at me, its tail snapped into position, swinging over its head in attack
stance as the little demon went for my neck. Being ever the macho he-man I am, I screamed like a
sissy girl and jumped to my feet - flailing around wildly while shaking my shirt. My enemy flew
across the room, landing by my little boy's television.
Any mundane ground insect would have cowered upon witnessing my body stretching to full
extension - all 6 feet, 2 inches of it. But not this guy. This little creep was either feeling The Force,
or on crack. Either way, his tale whipped around again as the death-bug made another Hail Marry
for my jugular. I grabbed a nearby Taco Bell Godzilla cup, and like a professional
bartender, flipped it over with one hand - bringing the mouth down over the scorpion! I heard is
little body slam into the side of the cup. He was trapped!
Now, you may ask, why didn't I simply crush the little f**ker? And a fair question it is. The
answer reveals a dark and sinister side of me most people never get to see. In my mind, I had been
violated by this bug. It had endangered both me and my little boy. It had offended the sanctity of
my house. I was genuinely pissed off at this thing. As such, I decided to do something
uncharacteristically mean-spirited. I was going to let it sit in the cup until it stung itself to death. Yes,
that's right, somehow I had gotten the idea that scorpions sting themselves to death when in
captivity.
So there he sat for five days. Covered by the cup, which was pressed down into the carpet by
an entire set of World Book Encyclopedias. He was dying, writhing in pain from the juices
of his own poison. I felt vindicated. Finally, after my little boy decided to move back into his room
(he wouldn't sleep in his room for nearly a week because of "the ugly bug"), I went to unveil my
diabolical handiwork. I couldn't wait to see that shriveled mass of arrogance and aggression
withered into a dried-up husk of a shell.
I removed the World Books, and triumphantly lifted my "Godzilla Hails a Cab" cup. Before I
had raised it an inch, out races the devil-bug for a re-match! This guy hadn't stung himself to death
(no, I don't know where I got the idea he would do that), this guy didn't seem hungry, starving, or
low on energy. This guy had the juices of Hell pulsing through its system - and he was seriously
pissed of at a mortal named Glen. What happened next...well...is a whole other story.
Now, if the scorpion crawling across my torso looked anything like this:
...I likely would not have screamed like a panzy idiot when sighting her on my body. In fact, I
probably would not have jumped to my feet (or resisted) at all. And I sure as hell wouldn't have been able to cover her with a Godzilla cup.
ABOVE: an image of Michelle
Lintel as the real-world personification of the title character Black Scorpion.
BELOW: THE MIDDLE MAN's review of Roger Corman's Black
Scorpion.
Hiho, Middle Man with a report on a new series most of you probably have
never even heard of.
It`s been some time since the two TV movies that Corman produced for
Showtime, so let`s do a quick recap: Darcy Walker is a cop in Angel City. By
night she becomes the leather-clad, high-heelded, baddie-kicking
superheroine Black Scorpion.
In the TV movies she was played by beautiful
Joan Severance, who despite usually doing tons of nudity in her other movies,
used a body double for the sex scenes.
TV movie number one (Black Scorpion
battles the Breathtaker) was a lot of fun, despite the low budget (rumored
to be around 1 mil. US). There were some cool design ideas, and the action
scenes were tough and well choreographed.
Even though they kept the director
and the writer (Craig Nevius, who also scripted the never-released Fantastic
Four movie), TV movie number two sucked like the Schumacher Batmans compared
to the work of Burton. Flashy photography and odd camera angles couldn`t
mask incredibly lame action sequences, kiddie-proof storytelling and an
over-abundance of villains (Aftershock and Gangster Prankster among them).
Overall, though, the movies were way better than the other crap Corman
produced for the cable channels around that time.
Well, here is the series. As a novelty, Corman financed it without presales,
and now shops the finished show around. I watched three eps, and here are my
thoughts:
Almost none of the original actors return, even though Corman
originally planned to have at least Garrett Morris (as a sidekick mechanic)
and Stephen Lee (as the Chief) on board. Joan Severance is replaced by the
much younger newcomer Michelle Lintel, who looks like a reject from shows
like Baywatch and Pacific Blue, but handles the limited acting task
quite capably.
Most of the props (costume, car) look similar to the TV
movies, and there is a reason for that (more later). The scripts are basic
at best. Some supervillain with odd abilities pops up, threatens the city
for some reason, and battle Black Scorpion. To fill up the 46 minutes, there
is some comic relief with stupid cops (awful) and some soap opera stuff with
Darcy and her new partner (that`s actually okay). But I have to be fair:
most TV superhero shows were worse, and at least the writers (mostly Nevius
again) know what the fans want: action, babes, and cool supervillains.
The music is way too synthetic for my taste, it sounds exactly like the
cheap syntheziser soundtracks of Cormans 80`s movies.
The fight scenes have bad choreography, and most of the car scenes are
speeded up, which looks really odd (especially if they don`t slow the film
down in time, and Darcy gets out of the car like she sat in a hornet's nest).
The look of the show is very cheap, and most of the effects are extremely
simple. It looks like one of the earlier syndicated crime shows (anyone
remember Night Heat?). The opening credits must be the oddest I have seen
in a long time, and I doubt they`ll make it into the series at all: an
animated version of the scorpion / frog legend! Hmmmmm.
Well, what else is there? Ah yes, it`s a Corman show, and he knows how to
sell his stuff. That`s why we get TONS of stock footage from older Corman
movies (he uses every trick in the book to justify them with flashbacks,
news footage, and general mayhem). Hardly any explosions or flight scenes
were done for the series, it`s all lifted from other projects. Also, a lot
of the scenes are lifted from the two TV movies (that`s why they kept the
props). And basically EVERY female part is played by ex-Penthouse Pets and
Playboy models (sex kittten Shae Marks even has a really stupid recurring
role). So if you ever wanted to see if Victoria Silvstedt or Lisa Boyle
could act - here`s your chance. And since Corman knows that the babes are a
major draw for his show, most of the official site (HREF="http://www.blackscorpion.net">blackscorpion.net)
features cutes pics.
So there.
All of the above should amount to a resounding "skip it", but oddly it
doesn`t. The show knows that it is cheap trash, and that makes it low-level
fun. It never aspires to be more than it is, and on its limited level, it
delivers.
Sure, a higher budget would`ve been nice to spice up the fights
and the effects, but considering how bad (and expensive) superhero shows
usually are, this is not so terrible. And Michelle Lintel really tries to
the best with what she`s got ("This is the chance for my big break" is
written all over here face).
If you remember, I recommended Farscape. This
is NOT Farscape. It`s cheap and tacky. Check it out at your own risk. But
prepare to be surprised. Maybe.
Keep a sixpack in reach...
Black Scorpion in costume.
I (Glen) don't have a clue who this is...
Glen
Or call:
(512) 347-1992
Mail can be sent to:
Glen Oliver
P.O. BOX 160812
Austin, TX 78716-0812
USA
P.O. BOX 160812
Austin, TX 78716-0812
USA
Austin, TX 78716-0812
USA
USA
-
+ Expand All
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Oh, yeah. That's a name that piques my interest. Not.
-
This is a man who truly loves to tell a story. Unfortunantly, it doesn't have to be a good or interesting story. 1% of his stuff rises to the level of "Little Shop of Horrors" and th rest is like Black Scorpion. I'll give him this much, he's bold.
-
Thats one of the rejected Power Ranger Villians, I'm sure of it. Heah....depending on what hour of night this show finally airs, I might give it a chance. i dont get Showtime so are the Movies out on video yet? Can I rent these turkeys? As for lifting stock footage from existing projects, its probably better that way (anybody seen Lords of the Deep? It sucked.) Anyway, this Black Scorpion show looks almost as campy as the 60's Batman TV show, but given the ratings of the campy Xena: Warrior Princess, this show could actually find an audience. The costumes look cool...I'd like to see the car prop also. McK :O)
-
yeah, okay wiseasses, I know it's my regular state of mind, but the first Scorpion movie confused me.
It started off as a "Batman" type wannabe, so I figure okay, it's for, like teenagers, you know, like a 15cert. Then they introduced the Darth Vader lookalike villain ina bad Power Rangers suit, so I thought, aw.....damn, it's for the under 10s........then, Scorp dropped her tights and gave the leading man a blowjob, so I figure.....whoa !!! What's going on ? Did three different peple write this ?
It was a fun film, in a funky sort of way. Best watched during a crate of Budweiser !
Great car, though........and I'm relieved that I've had confirmation that it WAS a double for Joan Severance in the rude bits, I almost wore out my tape heads slow motioning my video of the movie, checking ot out......just to be sure, of course !!! -
Actually, he looks worse than a power rangers villian, but anyway...
roger corman is the king of the B's, so it shouldn't come as any surprise that he would make something like this. I saw the showtime movie, and it really was awful. Perfect MST3K fodder. -
I have enough stories about slaving for Roger for seven and a half years that would make Mr. Lane Myers and Mr. L'Auteur's posts look like scribbles! He is not the man he once was. Not since the picture of him fell off in the office during the California earthquake a few years ago. Sort of a Dorian Grey effect. There was a story about Roger in the "Hollywood Reporter" where he invested his own $20 million dollars into the "Black Scorpion" project! THAT'LL BE THE DAY! More like $2.00.
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