GLOBSTER

unfinished mural in Point Pleasant WV. by Robert Dafford. The blocked in image depicts the killing of Shawnee Chief Cornstalk who’s final utterances apparently set a curse on the town. 

Sure Darkman is the sort of film where a lot of cardboard boxes get crushed and anonymous henchmen plummet over railings in anonymous abandoned warehouses. These lowbrow qualities are trumped by the films impeccable style and seamless art direction, making Darkman one of the greatest 90’s action/revenge films of the decade and at a very visceral level absurdly entertaining.  The acting is ok too, Liam “Rob Roy” Neeson, Francis “Fargo” McDormand and Larry “Dr. Giggles” Drake.

Darkman was created by Sam Raimi and his brother Ivan. In the film the third Raimi brother Ted gets his head crushed by an eighteen-wheeler and rightly so, he didn’t help with shit. As predictable as the film is, Raimi and company craft a weirdly classical tale of loss, grief, transformation, and revenge while keeping the subject matter truly dark. The plot is wonderfully simple, forged in the same factory as films like The Crow and Robocop, maybe even Cronneberg’s the Fly. It goes like this; a scientist is brutally disfigured and left for dead by a malevolent gang, returns for revenge with newfound powers and an uncontrollable vigilante rage. What works so effectively with Darkman is how critically it’s constructed from all of these great, but redundant plot devices.

It’s a comic book on screen for sure, with layers of information folding over scenes that fade in and out of one another, time is displaced and the events tumble on quickly from action point to point of action. The bad guys get thwarted by a good guy battling internal demons more menacing than the threats at hand and the possibility of redemption is vaporized within the first half.

Perfect. Not a second of dead air.

 The quality of the set pieces and the waxy-faced henchmen are treated with a thoughtful appreciation and design, even the extras seem to be dressed and designed to function in the collage like world Raimi creates. It’s a wonder there wasn’t a more significant toy line created from the film. 

The carnivalesque Danny Elfman score crashes in at the big moments complementing the over-the-top action and helping to flesh out the reoccurring theme of freak-ism. There are great psychedelic crescendos of rage that happen in the film, spinning in and out of Darkman’s dilating eyes revealing exploding skulls and fireballs and fast motion shots of Liam Neeson dressed up like a marionette puppet. At a traveling fair Darkman snaps a wiry carnie’s fingers and rips a plush elephant off a game booth wall. Later, while hanging from a helicopter he shouts “Ooooooh Shhhhhiiiiiiit!” smashing through a building and scampering over oncoming traffic. In the end Darkman kills every fucking bad guy in his way with each death more just than the next. I dare to say that you just don’t get this sort of entertainment from current blockbuster super hero action flops.  

Darkman was the sort of film that when I watched as a kid made me wish that something unspeakable would happen in my life so that just once I would be given freedom to take out some awesome vengeance. With any luck I’d get a gun arm and a scar over my eye in the process. I can only hope that this sentiment is felt for generations to come. 

 fun fact:

Dan Hicks plays the villain with the wooden leg that is actually a machine gun. He also plays the killer in Scott Spiegel’s Intruder, in which both Raimi brothers get butchered. Ted Raimi plays ‘Produce Joe’ who gets his headphones chopped in half.