Adventures in the Longbox August 2020: Ultraverse

 

    As part of my continuing efforts to make the most of this ridiculous year there has been a massive restructuring of the cosmicsparky boudoir. Old furniture has been cast off in favor of more functional new additions, old items are being dug out of ancient corners, long overdue handyman projects are nearing completion. Honestly it’s all a bit of a mess but the upside for you fine folks is all that potentially post-worthy items that have been rediscovered during this ill-conceived attempt at home-improvement. Case in point being the contents of this old longbox that for the past few years has served as the base of a poverty-stricken laptop desk. We’ve ventured into the contents of this box a couple times in the past to talk about items like my very first comic but today I thought it’d be nice to start venturing further into obscurity, beginning with the Ultraverse.

A Note Before Moving Forward:

    In all fairness I should note before going too far that I’d hoped to make this post larger until life tossed out one of those oh so fun curveballs. On Saturday night, as I was wrapping up the final exams of my summer courses and looked forward to a full week of relaxation my cat decided to go and have a leg issues. Turns out the lil guy might have hip dysplasia, at least according to the vet we were able to take him too. Tomorrow his main vet is gonna go over the files and figure out if this really is the case and what treatments we might try. Still gonna try to get the Halloween season stuff started on time for you all while I babysit my less mobile furry friend. If you all could send Mr. Forrest some positive vibe it’d be appreciated.

Back to the Article Proper:

    It should be noted that this longbox is actually the remnants of several comic collections, resulting in all manner of twisted relics. There’s no better example than the assortment of Ultraverse comics my brother left behind once he left for the army. You’re forgiven for scratching your head in wonderment as to what the hell Ultraverse even is. It was an attempt by Malibu comics to launch their own edgy superhero collective. There was an equivalent character for each main type. Prime was a disgusting body-horror take on Superman, Prototype was a lame ass riff on Iron Man. In place of Wonder Woman there was Mantra, a single mother with the reincarnated soul of a wizard… yowza. Instead of Man-Thing or Swamp Thing they had Sludge. There was even a Deathstorke/Deadpool sort of gun-toting anti-hero in the form of Solitare. Possibly the best known of the batch was Nightman, a Batman type notable for his atrocious late-90s television series.

    As noted before, each of the characters had to be more edgy and violent than the competition because it was the 90s and good taste had long since gone out of fashion. The characters of the Ultraverse might have made a name for themselves without gimmicks thanks to some of the creative talent behind the scenes. Malibu brought writers like Steve Gerber, Mike W. Barr, and Chris Claramont. Bing names for sure though none of them seemed to be bringing their best to the field. Perhaps that had something to do with the sheer focus on marketing and cross-promotion witch the characters wasting no time in visiting other books. The line even had its own major cross-over event within the very first year.

    The story of Ultraverse has one more weird turn. After the line found some amount of success Marvel comics bought up the characters and launched an event called Black September to start having them interact with the current roster of Marvel heroes. Thus we saw the likes of Prime and Juggernaut serving on the same team, or Rune facing off against Venom. The popularity of these new heroes quickly dwindled. After all; the big appeal of reading the Ultraverse was being there for the beginning of something new. Once it was all integrated and reconfigured into the Marvel universe there was little reason for readers to care. Why bother with bastardizations of heroes within the same continuity as the real deal. It wasn’t long before most of the Ultra heroes vanished into obscurity.

    The question for years has been what to do with these books. They’re aren’t high quality, that’s for sure. Nor do they command a high price on the used comic market. The things are pure lemons. Few people even know about them and even fewer want them. And yet their rarity is almost guaranteed as there seems to be some sort of contract snafu that prevented Marvel from relaunching or republishing the titles. I’m sure that legal matter has only gotten more complicated since the Disney acquisition.

    My brother’s stash wasn’t solely based on failed interconnected universes. He did have a few legitimately interesting titles like some Comicco issues of Johnny Quest, a sighed copy of the first issue of Valiant’s relaunch of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. Probably the most widely known are issues of Daredevil: The Man Without Fear. Sadly the massive print runs of the 1990s ensured that these books are not at all rare. Plus I hate Frank Miller so maybe the bro will get these in a holiday care package.

    Back when we kiddies were gathering comics during that 90s boom era my mother joined in as well by indulging in her Star Trek fandom. There’s about 20 issues each of DC’s regular and Next Gen Trek books along with the first few of Malibu’s DS9 material. I’ve never made an attempt at reading these but now might be the time to start. After all, current Trek isn’t all bad but there’s something to be said for the glory days of the franchise of which these books are a part.

    As mentioned before I gotta cut this post a bit short of my goal, didn’t even get to my section of the longbox. The idea I’m trying to float however is diving into random issues or arcs as a new recurring series for the blog. Try to make these lemons into internet lemonade. I’ll figure out a schedule for that down the line. Right now I gotta care for my lil dude and prep some Halloween stuff in my spare time. Any luck and there will be more posts within the week, and hopefully some good news about the quadruped.

Horror Double Features: Amityville 5 and 6

   

    August is often a mixed-bag for me. On one hand I look forward to the appearance of Halloween goodies on store shelves along with the end of summer, on the other hand there's nothing in the way of holidays or celebrations and it's usually the hottest point of the year around here. The first few days of this August have been something far different however being ushered in by big rain storms followed by a wonderful shift in weather patterns. Why just last night I was able to enjoy a bug-free time studying in a cool sixty-degree open garage with thick clouds and plenty of wind, it felt downright autumnal. Thoughts turned to subjects like pumpkin spice and the theme of this years mood table when I suddenly remembered I've been neglecting the blog. In honor of this weather teasing the better times to come let's get back to our double-feature overviews of the Amityville movies. Boy is tonight's pair ever an odd couple.

The Amitivylle Curse

    The Evil Escapes provided a nifty relaunch for the franchise with a Friday The 13^th The Series style haunted antiques recipe. Filmmakers would be able to take the series wherever they wanted while introducing new novelties tied into whatever cursed object took center stage. Amityville Curse presents an entirely different approach to keeping the series afloat by returning to the town of Amityville and suggesting that there are in fact many more haunted homes in the area. And so after four films chronicling a singular haunting we move on to a totally different home with it's own haunted history.

    You might be wondering what brought on this sudden narrative shift but, honestly, I’m not sure ff anyone has bothered to share meaty behind-the-scenes details on this one. For some reason a batch of low-rent Canadian producers got a chance to fiddle with the franchise and either weren’t informed of the antiques-based approach to sequels or they simply didn’t care. The shift in behind-the-camera talent is readily apparent as the budget and production value have noticeably dropped, which is pretty bad when you’re talking about the follow-up to a made-for-TV flick.

    The story concerns a group of adults, mostly friends from their college days, who seemingly intend to flip an old house. Honestly the film is pretty sloppy at explaining the situation with some character backgrounds making little sense. One guy for example apparently has successful investments in restaurants yet he plays personal contractor for his horrid acquaintances. Outside of him we have a main couple consisting of a chubby and hilariously haughty psychologist whose wife suffers from severe nightmares. Those nightmares, along with screaming, make up the majority of her personality. The other couple is made up of a slutty artist and her new husband who likes to stare at fires and talk about how he has no past... seems like a trustworthy fellow. Oh and should I mention he's played by Kim Coates? Even if you don't recognize the name I can guarantee you've seen the guy in countless other shifty roles.

    Anyway getting back to the story. So this old house used to belong to a local priest who was murdered a decade earlier inside of the confessional. Little do the new tenants realize that all the old mans stuff, including aforementioned confession booth are stored within the home. Bad juju starts to happen and in a bit of classic contrivance one of the characters doesn't realize they're connected to the houses past. That's pretty much all of it.

    Curse is not what you'd call an ambitious film. The production values, writing, everything is kept to a bear minimum of effort and the final product suffers for it. There's very little in the way of scares and what few there are barely register. The body count is drastically reduced as this new house has to rely on possession tactics rather than the outlandish accidents of the previous two movies. Nearly every character is unlikable and the cast isn't strong enough to make up for the poor writing. Most troublesome of all is how dull and lifeless everything can be with long stretches of little happening. That being said there are a few laugh worthy aspects along the lines of vicious stair-pushing and some sawblade-fu. And how could I forget the sweaters, oh my god, the sweaters. There’s just so damn many.

    Strange bit of personal trivia; Amityville Curse is actually one of, if not the very first, films I ever streamed, It was way back during my initial years of college and I wanted something spooky but not all that demanding to watch while I studied for a test or mid-term or something. At the time the movie left a very sour taste. Revisiting it all these years later I found only two aspects had stuck with me allowing for a new impression that while still bad was a bit more bearable. It's still a strong contender for the worst entry in the series but if you've got the right company and just a bit of chemical influence there's some bad movie memories to be made making fun of dreadful Canadian fashion. Should you try to get your paws in it be ready to put in a little work. Unlike the other entries there is no easily available dvd or blu-ray release in North America. That's why wedged in-between my fancy editions of the other films is a dusty old VHS tape, That's how much people care about this movie.

Amitville 1992: It’s About Time

    After the head-scratching detour to a whole new haunting the series returns to the producers of The Evil Escapes who bring us back to the cursed antiques branch of the series. As you might imagine this return to form also brings back some of the budget and a slightly notable director who was responsible for Hellbound: Hellraiser II. Now I know what you’re thinking, you’ve always wanted a horror flick about a haunted 1992 wall-calendar. Sorry to disappoint you but in this installment evil takes the form of a clock with a whole bevy of time manipulation trickery.

    Regardless of his top-billing Stephen Macht (best known for his outrageous Maine accent in Graveyard Shift) is not the main character. If anything he’s third in line. The actual protagonist of the piece is his characters ex-girlfriend, Andrea. Television fans might know actress Shawn Weatherly from her first season stint on Baywatch, where I believe her character died of shark-bite complications. Anyhow, Andrea is house/teen sitting for her architect ex-lover who is off on a business trip. Upon returning home with news of work on a new development project. Along with the good news is his new acquisition of an antique clock. Soon enough he is attacked by a dog causing Andrea to continue watching over the family as the clock slowly takes hold over the house. Good thing the slacker teenage son is best friends with an old lady who knows all about supernatural hocus pocus.

    Speaking of forbidden knowledge this entry marks a weird twist in the franchise mythology. Whereas the lamp served as an escape pod for the evil of Amityville it turns out the clock has a much richer history. It once belonged to a Frenchman who practiced devil-worship, human sacrifice, cannibalism, all the old party tricks. While not explicitly stated it could easily be argued that the clock contributed, or outright led to, the events in Amityville. Either that or evil things just run in the same social circles.

    Getting back to the film however we find just about everything improved over the lackluster nature of Curse. The set’s are a cruel exaggeration of suburban life, acting is better, there are some actual attempts at scares. The big novelty are the time-based aspects where characters leave a room during the light of day and return to find it suddenly night. Events slow to a crawl before suddenly catching up. It’s interesting stuff, though sadly not utilized near enough.

    Character wise Andrea is... serviceable... I guess. She's sort of a bland heroine which is a shame as her situation of caring for past acquaintances puts her in an interesting position. The teenage boy and his old lady pal each have better personalities, even if their roles are a bit aimless. Macht gets to ham it up and be gross as he struggles to recover from his animal bite resulting in lots of perspiration and puss as he slowly goes mad. The daughter begins as a classic good girl before the evil clock causes her to discovery sexuality. Naturally this leads to her luring men to their deaths and flirting with her brother, yikes. Lastly we have Andrea's current boyfriend, an educated yuppie who almost feels like a riff on the psychologist from the previous movie.

    Being the 1990s there’s also a weird mean-streak to the movie with some cartoonish gore mixed in. I've never been quite sure why that decade necessitated a shift towards gross exaggeration but it's a big part of this flick along with a few characters that are just plain unlikable. Your feelings or nostalgia for that kind of style will effect the overall enjoyment factor. For me some of the horrific events are way too nonsensical for their own good and it holds the film back from being a soaring success. That's just this horror nut's viewpoint anyway as I know there are many who rank this entry as their favorite Amityville flick. Either way it's a fun piece of spooky entertainment and a nice course correction after the inexplicable misfire that was Curse.

    Only four movies left to go in the series including the only one I've never seen before, Dollhouse. Outside of a couple big projects it looks like my classes will be a bit calmer over the next few weeks so perhaps this month I can finally catch-up on blog posts in preparation for the big holiday season. In the meantime I'd like to put out some feelers for other series folks want to read about in future double-feature articles. I'm already planing for the likes of J-Horror Theater, maybe I'll even us it as an excuse to finish the inexplicably massive Children of the Corn franchise. If anyone has a request I'm all ears.