KONG: THE ANIMATED SERIES (2001/2005-06)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological. metaphysical*

As a metaphenomenalist, I don't mind it when a show asks me to believe twelve impossible things, whether before breakfast or any other time. But even in a cartoon series aimed at kids, I could wish those impossible things added up to something more than ordinary.

It's curious that the writers even bothered to connect their KONG to the primal 1933 masterpiece, which related the complex but straightforward fable of an island where prehistoric life survived, and where a primitive Black tribe sacrificed women to the appetite of their gargantuan simian god. But that's the setup: after the 1933 Kong fell from the Empire State, a scientist, Lorna Jenkins, took a DNA sample from the big ape. She also did a lot of research on the renamed "Kong Island," where she found no primitive African tribe, but objects called "Primal Stones," which hailed from ancient Atlantis. (Kong Island is now located in the Bermuda Triangle, which I guess excuses the DNAPE's association not only with Atlantis but a host of other New Age concepts.)

Why Lorna does all this comes down to "just reasons," and this includes waiting about sixty years before she creates Clone-Kong-- possibly so that she could mingle the original ape-DNA with that of her grandson Jason. Young Jason grows up thinking of Clone-Kong as his "big brother"-- but only until Lorna's family is endangered by a villain who wants access to the magic of the Primal Stones. So Grandma takes her DNAPE and her research to the hard-of-access island, not reaching out to her grandson until he's of college age. Not content with re-creating a mammoth monkey. she's also invented devices called "cyber-links." A human who wears such a doohickey can magically merge his DNA with that of an animal, and conjure forth a gigantic humanoid creature. Why did Grandma want such a device? Reasons.

The real extrinsic reason was to provide heaps of Big Monster Action. The aforementioned villain gets hold of some of Lorna's links, and with them he can make himself, or one of his numerous henchmen, into huge beast-men in order to catch all the Primal Stones. Only Kong, who is "The Protector" of his mystic domain, can battle such titans-- and heroic Jason gets to tag along by merging his mind (but not his body) with that of Kong, sort of a primeval mecha-pilot.

While some kid-vids are clever enough that adults can appreciate them, KONG was designed to be dully repetitive, as evidenced by the fact that most of the episodes can be watched out of broadcast order. Villain and henchmen ferret out a Stone and use the links to become temporary monsters. Kong defeats them and they transform back and escape to do the same thing next episode.  

Jason BTW has two other partners in peril besides the big monkey: his comic relief college-buddy Tann, and what appears to be the only native of Kong Island. an acrobatic, copper-skinned shamaness named Lua. The three young people and Kong provide all the hero-action, with Lua using her shaman-powers to explicate whatever needs explication.

The only other point worth making is that if I watched this as a kid, I would rather have had the DNAPE dueling with traditional monsters. But there only a few of these-- a giant Yeti, a Wendigo--to allay the monotony.      

MONSTER ISLAND (2017)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

I almost want to create a neologism for movies that look a lot like the once-celebrated Pixar brand of animated features-- "Pixar-rips," maybe. The Mexican-financed CGI flick MONSTER ISLAND has at least the general look of a Pixar film, as well as a comfortable sort of "be yourself" moral. Not surprisingly, ISLAND lacks the wit and distinctive design-sense in the better Pixars. Still, I've seen much worse in the realm of original kid-vid movies.

For once, the title's accurate in that most of the story takes place on the island. For the first half hour, middle-schooler Lucas lives with his widower-father Nicholas, coping with school bullies and flirty girls. Nicholas constantly badgers Lucas to regularly dose himself with a special inhaler, to stave off some "attacks" to which their family is vulnerable. However, when Lucas attends a party of his schoolmates without using his inhaler first, he's somewhat torqued to learn that without that chemical, he turns into a huge, winged orange monster. He manages to reach his dad, and Nicholas reveals that though he sacrificed his ability to change into a monster somehow, the rest of their family-- including Lucas' late mother-- dwell on a special island called Calvera. 

I suspect that director/co-writer Leopoldo Aguilar was not too concerned about his universe, for it's never clear to what extent the human world knows about Calvera, or if there's any connection to the multifarious types of creatures there with regular humans. Lucas manages to reach Calvera to learn more about the family he never knew, which includes his big orange grandmother and an uncle named Norcutt, who seems to be a "recessive" type of creature since he looks like an ordinary human. Every entity on Calvera, no matter his or her bizarre shape, wears clothes and lives in a peaceful city, and thus aren't really "monsters" except in the sense of not looking like human beings. Their only problem is that some mysterious malefactor has been kidnapping Calvera's citizens. Hmm-- who could it be? Could it be the one resident who feels as isolated from his people as Lucas did from his middle-school peers? 

          

 If ISLAND offered nothing beyond Lucas's struggle with his monstrous identity, or Nicholas' desire to protect him, the film would have earned only poor mythicity from me. However, I rather liked Norcutt, who's motivated by "monster envy" to the extent that he's been draining off something-or-other from captive Calverans. His purpose is to transform himself to a powerful, malicious entity-- in other words, what most people think of when they hear the word "monster." Monster-Norcutt is the movie's only reasonably well-designed critter, and though ISLAND is supposed to be a comedy, its best scene is a big battle in which Lucas and Nicholas, both of whom are in monster-form, contend with Norcutt and his two bulky henchmen. Otherwise, there's not much here, though as I said ISLAND at least looks better than a lot of cartoon kid-vid and would probably be reasonably satisfying to munchkins.  ISLAND apparently made enough dough that three years later that Aguilar made another cartoon feature, which despite the name of MONSTER ZONE, seems to have nothing to do with ISLAND.

HULK AND THE AGENTS OF SMASH, SEASON TWO (2014-15)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological, sociological*   

The second and last season of HULK/SMASH is almost indistinguishable from the first. In fact, the first six episodes of Season Two deal with the Smashers getting "lost in space" following events in one of the last Season One episodes. I'm not sure that these agglomeration of Hulks were well-suited to cosmic adventures with the Skrulls, the Silver Surfer and Ego the Living Planet. But the space-stuff doesn't last that long if one doesn't like it.

Much as with Season One, the weakest stories are usually those that try a little too hard to be humorous, like "A Druff is Enough," in which the impulsive A-Bomb takes a cute little alien aboard the Smashers' spaceship, with the expected chaotic results. Two different stories deal with villains seeking to drain gamma energy from one or more of the Hulks. but I confess I didn't notice the plot duplication the first time out. Arguably, there might be slightly less usage of standard Marvel villains this season, concentrating mostly on the Green Hulk's main villain The Leader, the Kree leader the Supreme Intelligence, and The Maestro, an insane time-variant of the Hulk himself. Season Two also includes a version of "Nick Fury's Howling Commandos." who had previously appeared on a contemporaneous SPIDER-MAN episode. But the most noteworthy story involves the Smashers teaming with the Avengers to oppose the Kree, which conflict concludes somewhat after the fashion of the "Kree-Skrull War" from a 1970s AVENGERS continuity.    

There are a smattering of stories about the Smashers feeling ambivalent about being both "heroes" and "monsters," but this conceit doesn't go very deep. The level of characterization is always light and breezy, like many (though not all) Silver Age Marvels. However, there's a less salutary likeness to Sixties Marvel in that the group's one female member gets short narrative shrift, just like certain femmes formidables of the comics, principally Scarlet Witch in AVENGERS and Marvel Girl in X-MEN. Overall, the SMASH series isn't so much notable for doing great new stuff as for not getting things wrong as do many other Marvel animated adaptations.

          

BRAIN ROBBERS FROM OUTER SPACE (2004)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

Why would anyone make a schlock-movie tribute to PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE that lasts THREE AND A HALF HOURS, and why would anyone watch it? I can't answer the first question, but I have a partial answer to the second. In my case, I was looking for something mindless to play in the background while I worked on a fairly involved couple of blogposts. So I checked out the first few minutes of BRAIN ROBBERS FROM OUTER SPACE, whose title is a callout to PLAN's unused original title, "Grave Robbers from Outer Space. As soon as I heard director/co-writer Garland Hewitt trying to finesse his story of invading, zombie-making aliens with faux-learned references about HP Lovecraft, Aleister Crowley and the Illuminati, I knew I'd found my ideal timewaster.

I can also guess at the reason why Hewitt undertook the project: in the hope of garnering publicity for his career (which from looking at his credits on IMDB does not seem to have gone anywhere much). If one appreciates the degree of work it takes to put together just an average hour-and-half DTV flick, one has to give Hewitt some credit for persistence. The most detailed online review of this turkey asserts that Hewitt spent TEN YEARS compiling almost four hours of shot-on-video scenes with amateur actors, while IMDB estimates that his budget might have been about a thousand bucks. IMDB also carries a publicity line about how all of the assorted "actors" had "one degree of" links to Ed Wood. More like "one degree of links to COPS." That's what ROBBERS looks like; endless scenes of people sitting around tacky houses or trailers having meaningless conversations, occasionally interrupted by aliens, who also have a lot of meaningless conversations. The very tenuous connections to PLAN are that (a) head alien Morphea, who seems to be a fellow in drag, claims to be the granddaughter of the original two aliens, and that she's again reviving corpses in order to conquer Earth, and (b) one of the humans opposing Morphea is supposed to be an older version of "Officer Jamey," a support-character from PLAN. He's played by the only professional actor in the troupe, Conrad Brooks, who turned his reputation for having been in six Ed Wood movies into a long-term career of "so-bad-they-might-be-good" DTV movies. To say that he's the best actor in this movie, though, is no compliment. Brooks had about as much competition from the other players as he did from pieces of inanimate furniture.

Here the highlights that I bothered to scribble down:

At one point, some fishermen find a canister on a downed flying saucer. They take the canister for examination to a scientist, who analyzed it with what sounded like a "morphic resonance" machine. Hey, it's one thing to pick on the long-dead Aleister Crowley, but Rupert Sheldrake is still alive!

Since Hewitt must've felt the film needed someone to be his sequel's "Vampira," Morphea takes it into her head to change an ordinary Earth-girl named Lilith (Lara Stewart) into a bloodsucker. This she does with some mumbo-jumbo about a serpentine spirit related (I think) to the Lilith of Jewish legend. Later this action bites Morphea (is her name another Sheldrake reference?) in the ass because Lilith turns on the head alien, beats her down and kills her near the climax.

Aged Officer Jamey (who has in his house a framed photo of a younger Brooks with Bela Lugosi) is joined by various forgettable allies, one being a young policewoman, Mary (Raye Ramsey), whose big scene consists of bitch-slapping some guy-- which was more action that we get from all the desultory zombie-killing moments.

A gypsy fortuneteller utters lines from both THE WOLF MAN and GLEN AND GLENDA.

And finally, Hewitt tries to come up with a few Wood-like malapropisms, the chief one being, "prostitution may be the world's oldest profession, but grave robbing probably runs a close second."

But in truth, Hewitt's homage has nearly nothing in common with the oeuvre of Ed Wood. Wood had a fetish about female clothing and was only able to grind out his dimestore movies thanks to a cast of eccentrics. But in truth his most famous works are very "Hollywood" in the TYPE of stories he told, as opposed to his ability to tell them. To be sure, I've seen none of Wood's porno work, but it looks to me like he did those films to pay his bills, and that he'd much rather have been directing B-westerns. If Hewitt's messterpiece resembles any low-budget auteur's movies, ROBBERS resembles a much longer version of a Ray Dennis Steckler flick. But even this comparison fails to some extent, for the partisans of Steckler (not me) sometimes argue that all the people in his films look like they're having a good time with their schlock. Maybe that was true of the multitudinous members of the ROBBERS cast, or at least of a few, like the two dudes aping the Tarantino hitmen from PULP FICTION. But if so, the performers don't transmit any of their glee to the lens of the camera.                                     

        

MONSTER MASH (2024)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

Unlike the other two movies I've reviewed here that used the title of Bobby Pickett's famous novelty song, the 2024 MONSTER MASH is not a comedy. This is all the more remarkable since it's a low-budget film from that maker of mockbusters, The Asylum, and it doesn't appear to be based on any current successful film. It's not a perfect film by any means, but it's a better monster-mash than, say, the bloated, near-charmless VAN HELSING.

Doctor Victor Frankenstein (Michael Madsen, practically sleep-acting) is dying. He decides to start harvesting parts from the world's most famous monsters-- the heart of Ramses the Mummy, the flesh of the Invisible Man, and the blood of Dracula-- in order to create a giant homunculus, in which he will transfer his intelligence. To this end, he first sends his undead Monster (Erik Celso Mann) to capture the lord of vampires. But Dracula (Ethan Daniel Corbett) happens to be away from his crypt, leaving behind his daughter Elisabeta (Emma Reinagel). Since she's also a vampire, the Monster drags her back to Frankenstein's castle and sticks her in a cell, so that her daddy will come looking for her and also get captured.

Now, given that I enjoyed MASH on its own terms, I almost feel guilty about pointing out that for the entire ninety-minute length of the movie, Frankenstein does absolutely NOTHING to guide Dracula to Frankenstein's castle. I suspect that writer-director Jose Prendes knew that if Frankenstein observed this bit of logic, then there would be no reason for Dracula to assemble a task force of monsters, and what we'd have would just be another "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" flick. So the mad doctor leaves Dracula to figure things out on his own. Dracula happens to know a (non-monstrous) witch who guides the count to the mummy Ramses. Ramses teams up with Drac and they find The Invisible Man Griffin, and Griffin in turn brings in a friendly werewolf. 

While I'm glad that the various monsters don't do the Marvel thing where they fight before they team up, the lack of an immediate menace means that every time the monsters come together, it's a lot of talking head scenes. Admittedly Prendes' script gives some clever lines to the mummy and the invisible fellow. The wolf-man is a blank slate, but it's cute that his civilian name of "Charles Conliffe" is not the usual variation on "Larry Talbot" of WOLF MAN fame but is rather the name of the father of Talbot's girlfriend in the 1941 movie. Still, it's Corbett's Dracula whose grim sense of purpose lends even the talking-head scenes a degree of urgency. 

For a B-plot, the imprisoned Elisabeta builds up a friendship with the Monster, whom the neglectful mad scientist treats a pliable stooge. Mann does a very pitiable Monster, so that his scenes with the young vampiress somewhat make up for Madsens's equally neglectful acting-job. 

Eventually the Monster Squad finds its way to Frankenstein's hideout, but Dracula is separated from his allies, so that the evil doctor transfers his blood into the giant homunculus. This is where MASH's low budget most lets down viewers, for the giant CGI critter can't interact with the normal-sized monsters. So the goodguy-monsters have to defeat the behemoth with some rather predictable strategy, and the Monster--whose name is "Boris," ha ha-- joins forces against his "father" in the homuculus-body. 

The only other "name" performer in the film is Michelle Bauer, who plays, in very heavy makeup, a resurrected corpse who helps the witch in her divinations. I surmise that Prendes knew he didn't have the money to make an impressive movie, so instead he made a mildly enjoyable trifle with some decent performances, primarily by Corbett and Mann. Worth seeing if you keep your expectations on the low side.

          

ONE PIECE: STRONG WORLD (2009)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

I'd never attempt to review the multitudinous productions of ONE PIECE, the still-running manga and anime, any more than I'd take a shot at DRAGONBALL, the 1980s shonen that PIECE essentially superseded in popularity. Both are just too much of a time-commitment. But I can take a shot at the various movies and TV specials.

Phenomenality in ONE PIECE is problematic at best. It's not science fiction, nor what I call magical-era fantasy. The portmanteau term "science fantasy" is best, for it represents a world where all sorts of bizarre creatures and environments exist according to whatever phenomena the author wants to introduce-- much like the Mars books of Burroughs. Some characters in the PIECE universe use technology of a sort, but it's tech-gear filtered through the lens of historical fiction-- in this case, that of the Golden Age of Piracy. To further complicate the universe, there's some entity that scatters so-called "Devil Fruits" throughout the endless islands, and each fruit can bestow a particular, unique power on whoever eats one. So PIECE crosses the worlds of Burroughsian science-fantasy with that of superhero comics.

STRONG WORLD takes place after the manga and anime had been running roughly a decade, and stars nine-- count 'em, nine-- do-gooder pirates who never seem to find time to do the sort of things real pirates do. Instead, they're forever stomping out evil tyrants, or avenging little girls who've had their dollies messed up by bandits, and that sort of thing. In this case the goody-good "Straw Hat Pirates," led by the courageous moron Monkey D. Luffy, pit themselves against Shiki the Golden Lion, a villain who plans to dominate the world with a horde of mutated animals. In addition, Shiki abducts the Straw Hats' lissome lady navigator Nami to serve in his crew and scatters the other eight heroes all over the place. Naturally, after various exploits, they converge and kick the evildoer's ass.

Manga-creator Eichiro Oda wrote the movie's original story, and those in the know can see him recycling a major trope for the character Nami. When she first appears, she's the virtual slave of a petty ruler, and the Straw Hats rescue her. So WORLD is a partial reprise of that trope, with Shiki defeating the Straw Hats at first, so that Nami has to agree to serve him to spare her friends. The various "caring moments" in the film never overwhelm the big noisy action-scenarios but do serve as a necessary counterpoint.

ONE PIECE, which has been a major success in the world manga market, arguably found a way to translate the appeal of "superhero powers" to a shonen science-fantasy universe, and more than any other manga, seems to have eclipsed the American superheroes with the younger generations. WORLD is a decent action-fantasy programmer, with the only debit being that Shiki is just your usual tinpot tyrant. But the animators did a bang-up job designing all of the Golden Lion's malicious monsters, who provide some of the film's best moments.            

FRECKLED MAX AND THE SPOOKS (1987)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological* 

Well, at least FRECKLED MAX can lay claim to being the best German cut of a Czech TV series adapted from a book, FRANKENSTEIN'S AUNT, by a Swedish author.

I usually don't review compilations, but given that the seven episodes of the Czech (I think) series FRANKENSTEIN'S AUNT probably won't ever come my way intact, I thought I might as well give this hour-and-a-half smorgasbord a look.

However, aside from noting MAX's place in the history of monster mashup movies, there's not a lot I can say. Often compilations can be incoherent because they leave out a lot of establishing elements. However, here there were only seven episodes, and it still seems incoherent. I think it's unlikely the show had regular scripts, but rather that the makers just jammed a lot of goofy incidents together and let the actors have fun performing them.

The "Max" of the title is an orphaned circus kid who resents the adults exploiting him after his parents' deaths. So he runs away from the circus, and to the Castle of Doctor Frankenstein, where he becomes the roving viewpoint character for some or all of the absurdities. Henry Frankenstein is gone, but both his monster, named "Albert" after Einstein, and his aunt Hannah (Viveca Lindfors) are still around. The main plot, such as it is, seems to be the quest of Albert-- who just looks like a big dumb guy-- to marry a local human girl, Klara (sexy Italian actress Barbara de Rossi). While Albert courts Klara, other monsters hang around the castle doing silly things for who knows what reasons-- the ghost of Erzebeth Bathory, called "The White Lady," and Dracula, played by Ferdy Mayne of FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS fame. The IMDB page says that Eddie Constantine played some sort of water spirit in the TV show, but I didn't see him in the compilation.

Though MAX is about as plotless as a movie can be, I must admit all the actors and their costumes looked good, so I was moderately entertained once I gave up expecting anything but pretty pictures.    

SNOW MONSTER VS. ICE SHARK (2019)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

I don't get the sense that the SYFY channel, whatever its status these days, produces as many giant-beast films as it used to. However, I've been seeing more of them on streaming with Asian names in the billing, so I gather one or more Chinese studios have moved in to make up the deficit.

And just like the SYFY monster-flicks, this one, SNOW MONSTER VS ICE SHARK, is just as bereft of entertainment value as most of the American offerings. Actors who may or may not be talented are stuck reciting bland dialogue. One partial online review asserts that the movie was originally just called SNOW MONSTER, which was more accurate since SM is basically a routine emulation of KING KONG, but with a somewhat larger Abominable Snowman, albeit one with atypical goat-horns.

A fanatical Chinese scientist. name of Lin, sends an expedition into some snowy terrain-- the Arctic, possibly-- in search of a fabled snow monster. The expedition is headed by Lin's own niece Xiaoquin, but all members of the party go missing when a giant creature attacks them.

The government funding the project promptly sends an all-male task force to find the lost scientists, and once the soldiers are there, they stumble around for about half an hour before finally meeting a giant monster. Yet it's not the Snow Monster, but a predacious Ice Shark, leaping out of the water beneath the frozen ice. However, since the shark can't be allowed to take out all the heroes, the Snow Monster shows up and easily defeats the fish (which is nowhere near the snowman's size) by grabbing its tail and slamming it against a mountain. So much for the "vs." promised by the title-makers.

The soldiers are then taken prisoner by some snow-dwelling tribal humans who worship the Snow Monster. But as in more than one KONG remake, the natives and their monster are both benign, and the soldiers encounter at least one of the scientists they sought, Xiaoquin. So no more reason for fighting, right? Wrong; Uncle Lin is a corrupt dirtbag who brings in a lot more soldiers, and even a plane with a sonic weapon, in order to kill the Monster and harvest its genes for-- something or other. 

As in most of the SYFY monster-flicks, there's a lot of limited CGI fighting by the big critter, and he has a kung-fu priestess (Li Ruoxi) who provides most of the human-to-human conflict. Uncle Lin and his forces (were they government-controlled?) are wiped out, the tribe gets to keep its god-monster, and all the good people live and go home.

I will say the production values for this looked a little better than most of the SYFY items this genre, and though there's not a big monster-battle at least it is a valid monster-mashup. But those are the only merits of this forgettable bit of tripe.         

REBIRTH OF MOTHRA III (1998)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological,metaphysical*

After REBIRTH II scored high in the mythicity department, the third and final nineties Mothra movie returns more or less to the level seen in the first film-- though, to be sure, the script for REBIRTH III is more venturesome than that of the first film in the series. But again, the disparate elements of the script don't quite cohere well enough to make a pleasing whole.

REBIRTH III makes abundantly clear that the series doesn't take place in the Toho Studios Godzilla-verse. Though the first film had the crusading moth contend with a critter with a name that sounded like "Ghidorah," this time Mothra must fight King Ghidorah himself-- sort of. In the Toho-verse, King Ghidorah is a rampage-happy dragon, unleashing destruction for no particular reason. But when this multiversal version of Ghidorah comes to Earth, the big three-headed hydra suddenly has a new mission in life. While it's not entirely clear whether or not this incarnation is intelligent, this monster now captures and drains the souls of both humans and fairies to gain its sustenance, imprisoning his intended victims (many of them kids) within a membranous dome. Further, Ghidorah possesses enough sentience to exert mind-control when it encounters Moll and Lora. Ghidorah causes Lora to choke her sister, though Moll is able to escape while Lora falls into the confinement dome. This development reduces Moll's ability to send power to Mothra.

Belvera, oddly, isn't the evil provocateur this time. There's an early scene in which the three fairies seem to contend over some special fairy-tech upgrades to their respective daggers. But once Lora gets enslaved, the other two sisters are forced to bond to defeat the mutual threat of Ghidorah to both humans and fairies.

The most unusual element in REBIRTH III, though, is that there's just one youthful protagonist, a kid named Shota, and he's a preteen rather than a grade-schooler. He has a reasonably happy family-- two parents and two siblings, none of whom play important roles in the story-- but he has some vague conflict about going to school. Possibly the English dub left out something that the translators didn't think would play outside of Japan? As the dub has it, there's just one scene where Moll tells Shota that he's overly "sensitive" to the rigors of school life, but that this isn't anything to be ashamed about. The sentiment is admirable but the character of Shota remains unfocused. Shota does have one good moment where Moll needs his help and as a good kid, he has to gird his loins and grow some courage.

There's not really any reason for Moll to involve Shota, except that his siblings are inside the Ghidorah-dome and he wants to help rescue them. The kid's sent into the dome to deprogram Lora but this doesn't entirely work out, so Moll also comes up with a complicated plan to beat Ghidorah back in the prehistoric past, with a Mothra of the past-- I think. I didn't follow the plot's contortions very well, but the actors said their lines nicely, the two big monsters bashed each other about a lot, and the three fairy sisters enjoyed a reconciliation. So the series ends with more closure than kaiju movies usually get, and the writers wisely don't mention the issue of world pollution for a third time. So III is probably the weakest of the three Mothra-flicks, but it's still watchable.             

REBIRTH OF MOTHRA II (1997)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological,metaphysical*

Though the same writers worked on both REBIRTH I and II, there's a much better integration in II's script between all the disparte elements-- the two good Elias and their monstrous protector Mothra, vengeful Belvera and her desire to eliminate humankind, humanity's short-sighted abuse of the planet, an ancient civilization that unleashed a demon-creature (albeit out of good intentions), and happily, a new set of kids to be the viewpoint characters. There are practically no human adults in the story except a couple of fishermen whom Belvera brainwashes into becoming her flunkies.

I liked this set of kids because the script gives them a few scenes at school, enabling them to take on a modicum of personality. Grade school boys Yoji and Kohei are mischief-making scamps, and they get in trouble with the school authorities when their female classmate Shiori rats on them. This sets up a brief conflict in which the boys try to get even with their betrayer. However, Shiori happens to come across a weird little furball called Ghogo, and then all three kids get dragged into the hunt for an arcane treasure by the three Elias fairies. None of the fairy-girls know exactly what the treasure is, except that it can ward off a new monster-menace. Said menace is Dagahra, who plagues the already polluted oceans with dangerous starfish-creatures, the "Barem," whom Dagahra spawns from its own reptilian body.

Moll, Lora and the three kids journey to the area where the city of Nilakanai sank beneath the waves. More covertly, Belvera and her henchmen show up in the area as well. Dagahra, originally designed by the Nilakanaians to consume pollution, surfaces from the ocean and tries to attack the Elias. The fairies' protector Mothra flies in and battles the reptile creature, almost overcoming the beast. However, Dagahra unleashes the parasitic Barem onto the kindly moth, and drains Mothra's energies. Just then, the lost city of Nilakanai rises from the waves, making possible for Mothra to land on the island. Further, the island's defenses repel Dagahra, allowing both of the competing contigents to land as well.

After some minor scuffles between the kids and the mesmerized fishermen, the last surviving Nilakanaian, Princess Yuna, rises from some centuries-long sleep. Yuna challenges the two groups as to why either of them should possess Nilakanai's treasure. Not surprisinigly, Yuna finds in favor of the group linked to the human kids, who are "the hope of the future" or something like that. The treasure turns out to be Furball Ghogo, who holds the key to re-energizing Mothra so that the giant arthropod can rise again and defeat the destructive monster. Nilakanai returns beneath the waves with the body of Daghara and his spawn, and Belvera escapes for yet another sally in the third film.             

REBIRTH I seemed a little predictable re its visuals, but I liked Number Two's combination of traditional models, suitmation, and animated energy-effects as much as any of the best seen in Toho's Golden Age. REBIRTH II is a rare example of a sequel outpacing the original.  

   

REBIRTH OF MOTHRA (1996)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological,metaphysical*

The continued popularity of Mothra with Japanese audiences through the giant moth's appearances in Godzilla films spurred Toho Studios to make three films centered on the beneficent behemoth, largely if not completely independent of the Godzilla series.

One reviewer whose name I don't recall alleged that Toho sought to appeal more to female viewers with the series, but all three films seem centered on kids-- though of course the producers may have wanted the series to be appealing to any mama-sans escorting their munchkins to the theaters. The first REBIRTH isn't clear as to whether humans in this series have ever seen the Mothra phenomena before, but this is a small hurdle to leap over, since two kids, Taika and Wakaba, are largely the viewpoint characters.   

Centuries ago, an invading dragon-creature, Desghidorah ("Death Ghidorah," more or less) invades Earth, threatening the lives of the faery-people, the Elias. A primeval version of Mothra, the protector of the Elias, fights the invader and manages to imprison it beneath the eatth with a mystic seal binding the creature therein. I don't know if humans are around at the time of the battle, but in any case, the human race soon proliferates across the globe while the Elias remain hidden. In REBIRTH I we only see three, though it's not clear that they're the only ones in existence.

Construction workers dislodge the seal and one employee gives the odd object to his kids. This initiates Taika and Wakaba into the world of monster-battles, for the seal briefly possesses Wakaba, Damian-izing her so that she tosses her brother around with telekinesis. I think this may have brought about by Belvera, an evil fairy who hates humans and wants Desghidorah to ravage the earth. However, Belvera's two good sisters, Moll and Lori, seek to protect humanity, much like the two Shobijin sisters who often appeared in the "official Mothra" movies. Once Lori and Moll intervene, the two kids get to have a ringside seat to witness the evil monster's clash with the current Mothra. As is often the case, the older Mothra lays an egg from which its successor hatches, and after the older moth dies in battle the offspring succeeds in re-imprisoning the apocalyptic beast. However, Belvera escapes justice so that she can appear in the sequel.  

Though REBIRTH I is not outstanding, the cycle of death and life for the Mothra-monsters never quite loses its appeal, and that's why I give it a fair mythicity rating, There's a subplot about keeping the Earth clean that I didn't think quite fit the main story, but it's not overly preachy and the actors, adult and juvenile, sell the fantasy nicely.    

PIRAHNA-MAN VS. WEREWOLF-MAN (2010)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *irony*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

I guess Streaming has finally outpaced both the commercial TV of my youth and the days of video rental stores, if it can summon forth, as from the vasty deep, a fifteen-year-old monster-mash crapfest I never heard of.    

Now, ordinary when I raise the specter of--

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

-- it's usually because I'm revealing detailed plot points. But for PIRAHNAWOLF, I'm going to reveal the story that the crap-movie probably could have told adequately, at least as far as crap-moves go:  

Reporter Lexi Glass (Carrie Long) thinks she may have hit the big time. Stuck doing routine local news in Anytown U.S., she hears about two brutal slayings of blonde women, and witnesses think they heard the howling of a dog or wolf. While investigating, Lexi starts having weird dreams. Sometimes she feels herself experiencing the serial murders, as blonde women are attacked by a werewolf-killer. Less often, she also dreams herself swapping spit with a handsome bearded man she's never met. The two forebodings come together when Lexi learns more about her family background. Her mother had an affair with a man who was a werewolf, and by him she conceived a son, also a werewolf and a half-brother to Lexi. Lexi realizes that she's been experiencing the murders through her brother's eyes, and when she meets him in his non-werewolf persona, she's immediately attracted to him, dinner and a movie be damned. So they swap spit, because evidently as the child of her mother Lexi just can't resist those wolf-boys. However, she realizes she really doesn't want either to protect a killer or to raise little lupine babies, so she strangles Wolf-Brother to death without so much as a "one who loves him enough to understand" sentiment.   

Now, that's a serviceable if unremarkable plotline for a werewolf movie, and maybe if I'd read a summary that covers those points, I would have watched that movie more quickly than about a dozen other lycanthrope streaming-flicks that I haven't yet watched. But I have to admit I was lured in by the title PIRAHNA-MAN VS. WEREWOLF-MAN, even though I didn't expect much.

Trouble is, the two artistes behind this dreck thought they'd enhance the simple premise of their werewolf story not only by shoehorning in a Pirahna-Man (who's also Lexi's father), but also a convoluted origin in which (1) the original werewolf killed all hands aboard a nuclear submarine, (2) the submarine gave off nuclear waste that contaminated some pirahna-eggs, which (3) Lexi's father ate so that he became a "piscathrope." ALSO, the werewolf tends to kill lots of people in Lexi's social circle, a la Original Frankenstein's Monster, though not for any particular reasons I could suss out. AND ALSO, Lexi has some sort of spirit-guardian who wears a papier-mache mask over his face and who guides Lexi through some of her backstory-revelations, as well as enlisting Lexi's horny roommate to serve as the reporter's guardian.

On occasion I like flicks that throw everything and the kitchen sink into the mix, but here it's just low-energy and tiresome. All the extraneous material makes me wonder if the writers thought they were doing an absurdist take on monster-movie tropes-- and that leads me to label the film an "irony." It's also a combative irony thanks to a few minutes of fighting between the title monsters, though it's a poor example of both categories.    

        

DRACULA'S FIANCEE (2002)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

Though I've seen about ten Jean Rollin flicks, I've never reviewed any. I confess I find it hard to get a handle on Rollin's almost plotless exhibitions of female pulchritude, most often in the form of willowy lady vampires. And yet, though I don't think most Rollin movies have much thematic content, he does have an individual style that sets him apart from thousands of routine sexploitation filmmakers. FIANCEE is one of the last three films he directed before he passed in 2010. 

Now, while there exist dozens of films which invoke the name "Dracula" without having any relation to the character, or to any aspect of the Stoker novel, FIANCEE has both. Stoker's DRACULA is a rich work with more symbolic layers than all of Rollin's films combined-- or all the Hammer vamp-films too, for that matter. Yet for FIANCEE Rollin isolated one major trope from Stoker and made it his own: the trope of innocence seduced by timeless evil. For most of the novel, the king-vampire stalks Mina Murray, and almost makes her into one of his own kind-- and yet Mina becomes, in many ways, Dracula's foremost opponent, summoning forth a primal goodness to battle archaic evil.

 Yet Rollin inverts that formula for his own purposes. The viewer never knows much about Isabella (Cyrille Gaudin), the "fiancee" of the title. There's a toss-off remark by the nuns who keep her prisoner that Isabella shares the genes of Dracula, which loosely implies that she, unlike Mina, is some descendant of the vampire. Further, Isabelle is entirely willing to become joined with the dark lord, and though it's not clear exactly what will happen if the two of them are united in unholy matrimony, the nuns are eager to prevent her nuptials, as are the film's primary POV characters. An elderly somewhat psychic professor with no proper name and his young male student Eric (Jacques Orth, Denis Tallaron) have dedicated themselves to preventing the wedding of Isabella and Dracula. It takes them a while to gsther intelligence, as they first engage in colloquy with a (very good looking) village madwoman in order to learn Isabella's presence in the nunnery. Yet, even though technically the madwoman doesn't have much to do with the story, thematically she reflects Isabella's true nature, for the fiancee seems able to spread some virulent madness to her captors. Rollin gets a lot of incidental humor from the weird behavior of the nuns, by the way.

In many similar stories, Dracula would be stage-managing a bunch of lackeys to secure Isabella's release. Instead, he seems to exist in some sidereal world, gaining access to the mortal world through the venue of a grandfather-clock. The vampire-lord does so little in FIANCEE that this may be one of the only Dracula movies in which Dracula is less central to the story than the maiden he seeks to violate-- which would make the FIANCEE title unusually appropriate. Isabella, Dracula's willing bride, spreads madness among the nuns, and the mostly feminine beings who assemble for her wedding seem more like Isabella's unholy bridesmaids. I'm not sure if Rollin was hip to the cinematic tradition of the "monster mash"-- it doesn't appear in any of his works I've seen, in contradistinction to, say, what one sees in the films of Paul Naschy. But if Rollin had just wanted an excuse to film a lot of scenes with hot monster-women, he could have just made all the bridesmaids vampires. Instead, Rollin's script takes the trouble to make up a weird term for non-vampire creatures-- "Parallels," for whatever reason-- and the wedding party includes at least two non-vamps: an "Ogress" and "a She-Wolf," though naturally Rollin blows no bucks on makeup or appliances. Incidentally, the small role of the She-Wolf is played by frequent Rollin collaborator Brigitte Lahaie.

So Isabella gets free, and the Professor and Eric try to stop her from hooking up with the Big Vamp-- and after a lot of incidents, they fail, and the unholy union apparently takes place. Rollin's script also tosses out various psuedo-poetic bits of dialogue, but he's never been a filmmaker known for scintillating repartee. So the film just kind of ends on a dispiriting note, though as I said it's hard to feel much when one doesn't know what's at stake. But it's a nice-looking film, maybe one of Rollin's best in a formal sense.                            

     

APE VS. MECHA-APE: NEW WORLD ORDER (2024)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Just as the previous Asylum entry in this series was a deep-discount knockoff of GODZILLA VS. KONG, and so opposed its imitation Kong against its mechanical imitation, NEW WORLD ORDER loosely derives from GODZILLA VS. KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE, wherein the two title monsters team against a threat to Earth.

ORDER is a tiny bit better than its predecessor, if only because returning writer-director Marc Gottleib injected a little more mystery into the proceedings. Why is Abraham the Ape, now confined to a Pacific island, now acting as if he anticipates some new enemy by costuming himself in crude "armor?" Why does a cruise ship, whose passengers include the parents of ace reporter Naomi (Ashley Dakin), disappear at sea? And even though the government has built a "Mark II" version of the Mecha-Kong that got enlisted by terrorists in the previous film, a version that should be impossible to usurp again, why does an early scene appear to show Mecha-Kong II overtaking the cruise ship?

Well, Gottleib does have some answers to some questions, though I don't think he ever explains that early oceanic scene with Mecha-Kong II. It seems that the aliens who originally inserted the bio-gunk into Abraham's capsule in APE VS MONSTER have a much more involved scheme, involving the resurrection of an ancient giant tentacle-headed critter named Khlu-hoo (HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu under an alias). Somehow the aliens, who never make an appearance on Earth itself, orchestrate this with the help of human servitors, including a politico played by the resident "name-actor," Sean Young. Ape and Mecha-Ape botn fight the Tentacle-Menace, and though the two "heroes" are not literally on screen together, Gottleib does find a way to make the early scene of Abraham "armoring" himself pay off.

That said, ORDER is still just another Asylum in which no-name actors stand around spouting Bad Expositions, with maybe ten percent of the movie devoted to monster-action. That said, I liked the design of Khloo-hoo (or whatever) better than either of the pongid protagonists, particularly in a scheme where Tentacle-Terror just picks up Abe and chucks him like a bad penny. But I didn't like anything about ORDER enough to give it a higher rating than poor.  

            

APE VS. MECHA-APE (2023)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Now this is more like the usual Asylum output. APE VS. MONSTER surprised me by interpolating a typical cheesy giant-monster battle with a decent melodrama for the human viewpoint character. So did Asylum bring back either the writer or director of that film for a follow-up? Of course not. Instead they drafted a guy named Marc Gottleib to both write and direct-- the guy also responsible for the godawful 2025 ARMAGEDDON. 

I don't blame Gottleib for not using the same human cast in this sequel, and maybe he even earns a little credit for keeping MECHA-APE loosely in continuity with its predecessor. Abraham the Ape still has the same backstory: he's an ordinary Earth-ape sent into space as part of an experiment and then infected with alien DNA so that he grew up to Kong-size and went on a rampage. In MECHA-APE, the government has set up the big simian in his own wildlife preserve. I wasn't sure exactly where the preserve was until it was eventually established to be within the States, apparently somewhere near Chicago since that becomes a plot-point. Again Abe has a female protector as he did in MONSTER, but this time it's a scientist named Sloane (Anna Telfer). But the government isn't investing its dough in Abe out of the goodness of its collective heart. Sloane, along with some vague scientific project, have constructed Mecha-Ape by using Abraham as a model. Why did the US government think it worthwhile to build a giant robot ape with artillery in its arms? Who knows? At least in KING KONG ESCAPES, the evil scientist had a comprehensible reason for making a Mecha-Kong.

In fact, for a movie filled with actors mouthing Bad Exposition, no one has much in the way of motivation. Some East European spies, aided by what one presumes are some radicalized diverse Americans, manage to take remote control of Mecha-Ape, stick a nuclear bomb in him, and send him lumbering toward Chicago. What's their purpose in blowing up Chicago? Heck if I know. Sloane manages to jump off a building onto the robot's metal back without breaking even one bone, but though she can't deprogram the mecha, she can draw her anthropoid buddy Abe into a fight with Mecha-Ape. It's not the worst CGI behemoth-battle I've ever seen, but it's still forgettable.

All of the actors were unknowns to me except for the obligatory "name" performer whom almost no one cares about any more-- this time, Tom Arnold in an absolutely nothing role.      

   

APE VS. MONSTER (2021)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

APE VS MONSTER is an Asylum mockbuster of the same year's big-budget GODZILLA VS. KONG. Surprisingly, it's not that bad, particularly in comparison to most of the studio's output.

Now, it goes without saying that a cheap-ass monster-mockup can't compete with its big-budget model in terms of convincing FX-battles between brobdingnagian behemoths. If one wants such conflicts, one goes to the high-profile Hollywood productions. The limited FX of APE must be evaluated next to true losers like KOMODO VS. COBRA. With that in mind, though the ape of the title is underwhelming, the giant gila-- which looks a lot like the 1998 Godzilla-- isn't bad, and the climactic battle of the mammal and the reptile isn't bad, as cheap-ass monster mockups go. All the stuff that alters two Earth-animals into colossi is unremarkable, and not worth summarizing.

 But that backstory is worth mentioning for the support-cast of humans who witness the creatures' rampage. I mentioned in my review of GODZILLA VS KONG that its human characters were "bare functions of the plot," but that's not the case in APE. American scientist Linda (Arianna Scott) was loosely involved when a joint American-Russian space project launched a chimpanzee test subject into the Great Beyond. Linda had strong maternal feelings for the chimp, name of Abraham, and resented that her father, the rather-cleverly named Noah, used Abraham in the project. The two of them remained estranged for the thirteen years before the space capsule returned to Earth. Over time Linda figures out that aliens messed with the capsule-- ironically, sent forth on some vague "first contact" mission-- and arranged for the vessel to return to Earth, with Abraham infected so as to become an Amazing Colossal Ape. It's not clear if the ETs-- who remain hovering the atmosphere during all this gorilla-megilla-- think that one big ape is going to soften up the planet for conquest. It seems to be a coincidence that some of the enlarging-juice leaks out of the capsule and makes a lowly gila monster into a Giant Gila.

"Big-name" Eric Roberts has a nothing role spouting exposition, but Linda gets ample support from Eva (Katie Sereika), a Russian exchange student Linda knew in college, but who's now a Russian commando seeking to protect her country's interests in the space program. There's also a gung-ho general who wants to kill both giant creatures, even the benign Abraham, which adds a little extra tension. For once, the teaming of two efficient females in a monster-movie doesn't seem like a nod to political correctness, and Linda is given a simple but efficient character-arc, nicely portrayed by Arianna Scott. This is one area where I'm glad the filmmakers did not emulate GODZILLA VS KONG.          

HULK AND THE AGENTS OF SMASH, SEASON ONE (2013-14)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological, sociological*   

Both this TV cartoon and AVENGERS ASSEMBLE were launched in 2013, the year after the MCU culminated its "Phase One" sequence of films with THE AVENGERS. Both animated serials followed the template of the MCU AVENGERS in terms of mixing heavy-action sequences with lots of comedy relief-- as indeed the Classic Marvel comics had. ASSEMBLE enjoyed six seasons while SMASH only got two. But with the former show, credited to showrunner "Man of Action," ended up producing a show with merely superficial humor and characterization-- unintentionally presaging the rot that would overtake the live-action MCU by Phase Three. With the latter program, showrunners Paul Dini and Henry Gilroy accomplished more in two seasons than Man of Action could have done with twice as many episodes. In short, Dini and Gilroy captured the fun of early Marvel comics.

Though both shows were free to pick and choose from the vast array of heroes and villains in Marvel's complex continuity, SMASH has much more fun with their choices, while with ASSEMBLE, every reference feels a lot like homework (a common complaint about the later MCU, by the way). What most surprised me about SMASH was how interesting they made all the HULK continuity from the 21st century iterations, few of which I've visited. Naturally a cartoon made for commercial TV had to change some things. SMASH's Red Hulk, though he has the same basic origin as the comics-version, is much less of a physical threat, while the barbaric powerhouse Skaar is not literally the Hulk's progeny, though there's a loose figurative filial relationship between the two. In the comics Hulk's perennial sidekick Rick Jones was only briefly changed into the monstrous "A-Bomb," but the cartoon's A-Bomb is more of a juvenile joker as well as a hypester, turning his exploits with the SMASH team into the stuff of podcasts. She-Hulk stays pretty much the same, strong and sassy, while the Big Green Guy manages to be a "smart Hulk" who doesn't come off as a cloying castration of the original hero's monstrous appeal.

I won't review all 26 episodes of SMASH's first season, for though I enjoyed them all, they could be fairly criticized for a certain sameness. Their best feature is, as I said above, the writers' ability to peg particular parts of the Marvel mythology and give them added appeal. I can't exactly quantify what SMASH does right and ASSEMBLE does wrong, except to say that the choices of SMASH don't seem nearly as predictable. For instance, thanks to a time-travel jaunt, the Hulk, a sixties co-creation of Jack Kirby, brings back to his time a big crimson dino called Devil Dinosaur to serve s pet-- the original "Devil" having been one of Kirby's 1970s creations. I enjoyed the episode "Deathlok" less for the presence of the titular cyborg hero than for the fact that the evildoers were the shapechanging Skrulls, whom the MCU tried to recast as some sort of put-upon marginalized alien race. And then there's "The Hunted," in which the Not So Jolly Green Giant gets stranded on Marvel's version of Monster Island, which plays host to over a dozen weird creatures culled from Marvel's "monster books" of the 1950s and 1960s. Of course, a lot of ideas don't work at all, like a bizarre plotline in which the ADD-afflicted A-Bomb tries to study the mystic arts under Doctor Strange. But usually even the episodes with hokey plotlines have some funny bits in them. Voicework is uniformly fine, with the standouts being Fred Tatasciore as Green Hulk, Clancy Brown as Red Hulk, and Eliza Dushku as "Too Sexy for Your Party" She-Hulk.

                 

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, SEASON FOUR (1999-2000)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological, sociological*   

College is a time for reassessing priorities, and while a Slayer can't change a lot about her life, her show can. Angel is gone from the regular cast (though he makes two appearances this season to hype his new show), and Seth Green's Oz will also depart soon, as old character Spike and new character Riley Finn assume greater importance. I'd generalize that there aren't as many high-mythicity episodes this season as in Three.

THE FRESHMAN (P)-- Buffy, Willow and Oz commence classes at Sunnydale U while Xander joins the workforce, and Giles spends the rest of the season unemployed but not hurting for money. Recurring characters Riley Finn and Maggie Walsh are introduced, as is a new clutch of young vampires led by a sardonic blonde, Sunday. Buffy's trouncing of the vamps is probably the only thing in her comfort zone. For most of the season Mama Joyce is usually out of the picture.

LIVING CONDITIONS (P)-- Buffy's first experience with a dorm-mate is something less than positive, as she and fellow college roomie Kathy Newman get on each others' nerves. Conveniently, Kathy proves to be a demon. Once she's out of the way, Willow moves in with Buffy.      

THE HARSH LIGHT OF DAY (F)-- Buffy, on the rebound from Angel, becomes invested in a new guy, Parker, but he turns out to be a "love-and-leave-'em" type. Anya returns and has immediate success in seducing Xander, as well as adding to the show an acidulous attitude even more penetrating than that of Cordelia. Willow encounters former Cordette Harmoney, and learns what viewers observed at the end of Season 3; that Harmony's become a vampire, albeit an incompetent one dependent on the help of her new boyfriend, Spike. He's back in town looking for the Gem of Amara, a talisman that can immunize vampires from their usual weaknesses. Once he has it, he engages Buffy in a big daytime brawl on the campus, which goes totally unnoticed by students and faculty. Buffy relieves Spike of the ring and he flees. The ring later turns up on an episode of ANGEL in its first season.

FEAR ITSELF (P)-- The Scoobies get trapped in a Halloween party whose terrors are real, thanks to a fear-demon named Gachnar. Yes, it's just another make-work menace, but at least there's further development of Willow's witchy ways.

BEER BAD (F)-- Like "Band Candy," "Beer Bad" depends on a make-work menace but the chaos unleashed by the dubious evildoer provides more than average amusement. Buffy, her ego bruised by having been conned into bed by Parker, begins hanging out in the college bar with fellow students (all male) who drink a lot of beer. However, the bartender hates snotty collegians and puts a spell on the beer, so that anyone who drinks it begins to regress to a caveman (or cavewoman) level of intelligence. Gellar in particular gets to shine with her walk on the primeval side. And while there are various remarks about men being concerned only with sexual conquest even when not reverted to cavemen, the script plays fair. For the only time in the series, Cave-Buffy evinces an attraction to Xander, indicating that she's not insensible to his charms but can't relate when she's in her "normal" persona; only when her sexual inhibitions are lowered.

WILD AT HEART (F)-- Earlier episodes hinted at the underground militia known as The Initiative, but they finally take center stage when they find and abduct Spike. A scientist with this monster-capturing operation fits Spike with a brain-chip that causes him pain any time he attacks humans, and though Spike will escape the installation, he'll remain largely "neutered" for the remainder of the season, allowing for much entertainment value. This subplot is better than the main one, in which Oz feels a soul-connection to Veruca, singer in another youth band, causing Willow considerable pain before any of them learn that Veruca too is a werewolf. Veruca dies and Oz almost kills Willow, so Oz leaves the college, determined not to return until he finds a way to cancel his curse.

 
THE INITIATIVE (F)-- The other shoe drops, revealing that Professor Walsh is one of the heads of the government's secret installation beneath Sunnydale, while Riley and some of his college-buds are soldiers serving the cause. Spike escapes captivity and when he goes looking for Buffy, he finds and tries to fang Willow. He then finds he can't attack her, which Willow initially interprets as disinterest, resulting in the two enemies having a weird conversation about the vampiric version of erectile dysfunction.

PANGS (G)-- The Buffy Gang celebrates its first Thanksgiving gathering (still with Joyce off somewhere), though Willow, channeling her collegian mother, complains that the holiday falsifies the truth about Native American genocide by Euro-colonists. Buffy however wants a proper holiday observance to give her a sense of continuity with her new family. Angel comes to town, having been told by an oracle that Buffy may be in danger-- a prophecy confirmed by the manifestation of the ghosts of several Chumash Indians, massacred by the Sunnydale colonists of the period. (One of the ghosts' signal habits is to cut off the ears of victims; I'll bet that the script originally meant to reference "scalps" but backed off the image due to political sensitivities.) Spike invites himself to the Thanksgiving dinner in order to avoid Initiative pursuit and the Scoobies force themselves to tolerate him to learn more about his former captors. Spike is also vital to counteracting Willow's sentimentalization of the savage ghosts, and she soon learns that good intentions don't mean much in a struggle for life. Angel almost succeeds in concealing his presence from Buffy.

SOMETHING BLUE (G)-- Willow's as fragile from Oz's leavetaking as Buffy was from having slept with Parker, but the young witch shows greater propensity for letting her emotions go haywire. The Scoobies contemplate performing a truth spell to get more information out of Spike, who makes the most of his being an unwelcome houseguest. Willow instead performs a spell which she thinks will make her pain go away, but instead it causes reality to change in line with any random thing she asserts. The outstanding effect is that one of Willow's unserious remarks results in Buffy and Spike believing that they've fallen deeply in love with one another, with all the attendant wild humor of that situation. Later the false relationship between the enemies will take on real ramifications.

HUSH (G)-- The usual concerns continue-- Riley and Buffy becoming more intimate, Spike being a rotten guest to both Giles and Xander-- while for her part Willow befriends a fellow collegian interested in Wicca: Tara McClay. This sets up Willow's swing toward the Isle of Lesbos for the rest of the season, but the predominant menace is that of demons who look like skull-faced morticians, the Gentlemen. These creatures enforce a spell of silence over Sunnydale because the only thing that can dispel them is a female scream. After much use of mimed gestures and visual aids, the Gentlemen are defeated, and Buffy and Riley find out about their respective demon-hunting agendas.

DOOMED (F)-- Buffy and Riley come clean with each other, but Buffy's reluctant to continue a doomed relationship. Earthquakes strike Sunnydale, a foretaste of yet another demon-inspired apocalypse. While the Scoobies seek to learn the threat's nature, Spike is so despondent at his impotence that he tries to kill himself. Drawn into a fight, Spike exults to learn that his brain-chip doesn't keep him from beating down demons. Though he'll later betray the Scoobies in this season, he shows indications of becoming somewhat bonded to them as he never was to his fellow vamps.

 

  A NEW MAN (F)-- Ethan Rayne makes another of his peripatetic visits, and this time he enchants Giles into changing into a huge horned demon, apparently hoping that the Slayer will kill Giles. In this form Giles can only speak a demon-language, and no one can understand him but Spike. The Spike-Giles scenes are the highlight of this so-so episode.

THE I IN TEAM/GOODBYE IOWA (G)-- These two episodes offer a very delayed introduction to the season's "Big Bad," the cyborg-demon amalgam Adam, created in the Initiative's laboratories by the obsessed Maggie Walsh. Buffy is invited to visit the Initiative and to coordinate her demon-hunting with the government's, though Walsh has her own agenda. Walsh sets up Buffy to be killed but fails, after which Walsh's creation slays her out of hand. When Buffy and Xander infiltrate the Initiative, they and Riley are confronted by Adam who wounds Riley and escapes. Adam's precise motives for creating death and chaos seem to be an extension of the scientific outlook that created him: he does it just because he can.

THIS YEAR'S GIRL/WHO ARE YOU? (G)-- Faith wakes up from her coma and learns how the Scoobies killed the Mayor. She seeks out Buffy and fights her, but Faith is forced to break off when police arrive. It's not clear why the police have a file on Faith, though the Council may have been involved after their own failure to imprison the rogue slayer. To Faith's good fortune, the Mayor left her a mystic trinket that enables Faith to "hide in plain sight" by switching bodies with Buffy. Thus Buffy/Faith is taken prisoner, first by the police, and then by the Watchers' Council, while Faith/Buffy has a good time assuming Buffy's role. However, Faith isn't able to restrain her ruder tendencies, and witchy Tara immediately senses something wrong. While Buffy/Faith escapes the Council and seeks to convince Giles of the truth, Faith/Buffy cons Riley into sleeping with her. Contrary to expectations, Faith doesn't enjoy the deception, and she plans to leave Sunnydale. Providentially Adam unleashes a gang of vampires upon a local church, probably as another experiment. Real Buffy responds by seeking to save the innocents, but so does Real Faith, having become seduced by the allure of being a hero. Once the vampires are finished off, the two Slayers fight again, and with the help of a witch-doohickey Real Buffy recovers her own body and Real Faith is consigned to her own, as well as to the gnawing discontent with her own corrupted soul.

SUPERSTAR (P)-- Once again, a lightweight episode follows several heavy-drama stories. Jonathan, the aggrieved nerd from "Earshot," gets hold of a magic spell that alters reality, so that he is everyone's hero and all the Scoobies defer to him, believing that he's always been the best of them. Eventually Buffy's iron will exposes the truth. I suppose the scenario might be a satire of "Mary Sue" fanfiction, in which an author inserts an idealized version of him/herself into some commercial property. It's still a slog.

                                                 

 WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (P)-- What, another haunted-house party, in the same season? Granted, this time the make-work menace creates chaos by taking advantage of the sexual fireworks between Buffy and Riley once they reconcile. But it's still just a parade of disparate horrors, just like "Fear Itself."

NEW MOON RISING/ YOKO FACTOR (F)-- Though the gay relationship between Willow and Tara has largely been implicit, it takes center stage here as Oz returns to college, claiming that he's conquered his werewolf transformations with meditative spells. However, Willow finds herself tugged between an old love and a new one, and Oz soon finds that emotional turmoil brings out the beast in him. Meanwhile, Spike wants the removal of his chip so badly that he offers his services to Adam, which might be deemed the show's first "super-villain team-up." In "Yoko" Spike tries to undermine the Scoobies by telling each of them that others talked trash about him/her, which does elicit a major falling-out. Angel also comes back to Sunnydale, trying to make amends for a quarrel he had with Buffy in an ANGEL episode. He and Riley have hate at first sight and duke it out. 

PRIMEVAL (G)-- Buffy exposes Spike's chicanery and decides that she and the Scoobies must make a frontal assault on the Initiative, where Adam has once more inserted himself. Buffy's only chance to take down Adam is if Willow and the others invoke an "enjoining spell" which taps into the powers that first created the Slayers. After the Scoobies enter the base, soldiers capture them and take them before their commander. Buffy takes aim against the mechanistic outlook of the government, telling the commander "you're all messing with primeval forces you can't begin to understand." In due time Buffy squares off against Adam and her magical power-boost allows her to destroy him. Spike then renders some minor aid to the Scoobies to ingratiate himself, but his status is left up in the air in the season finale.

RESTLESS (P)-- Buffy goes Dada! I realize that the writers were probably all tired from juggling so many balls, but a series of loony dreams did not suffice for a big finish. Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles are besieged by chaotic dreams due to their having tampered with the mystic forces behind the First Slayer. The content of the dreams is generally superficial, except Buffy's, since this seems to be her first encounter with the archaic but still vague mythos Whedon created for her. This and one previous episode allude to the introduction of a new character in Season Five: Buffy's kid sister Dawn, who is inserted into their continuity much as Jonathan rewrote their history in "Superstar."