Another round of big holidays has come and gone and yet another year is in proper swing. In the interim I’ve been a total slouch at blogging. Since last touching base there’s been the usual array of work, holiday clean-up, January projects, oh, and the entire household may have had covid at some point. At the very least we found out well after the fact that we’d been exposed. If it infected any of us it went unnoticed. Don’t take this as downplaying the risks. We’ve all had our shots and thankfully the family luck tends to keep things like that at bay. Outside the house we now know some folks who were taken out by covid and I even had to take on extra work responsibilities for a while as several folks took ill. It may be a new years but, seriously folks, take your damn shots, I can nly handle so many extra shifts.
Given the amount of time that’s passed it’s only right to do some post holiday wrap-up. Can’t speak for everyone else but around here December felt kinda off. It rarely felt like Christmas so much as extended Thanksgiving. That’s not to say it was bad as there were still plenty of pleasant moments and nifty gifts to go around I just think a number of people weren’t in the spirit and that collective charge that seeps out into the world failed to reach full strength It was the sort of holiday you hard to force a little by taking the right steps in food or entertainment in order to trigger that jolly center of the brain. Oddly enough I felt more festive throughout January. Perhaps the spring holidays will need to be beefed up to balance the scales.
While the feeling of Christmas wasn’t totally there it didn’t stop this household from doing their damnedest. The advantages of proper employment allowed me to give a better array of gifts. Not to brag but the haul wasn’t half-bad either with most of my hobbies covered. Nearly everything came in threes. Three horror flicks, three tv series, three video games, you get the idea. If I wasn’t already primed for months of activities this certainly made up for any lacking areas.
Originally the plan was to segway this post into the fittingly post-holiday first season episode of Night court featuring Michael J Fox as a despondent teenager. Problem is I revisited the show about two days before Christmas and have since forgotten all the internal commentary. Still there’s one thing, or rather five that I planed to write about and still maintain enough snark to torment you with; The Underworld franchise.
Little personal history. Despite being a fiend for all things horror I’ve largely avoided the Underworld flicks. Sure the first two were blockbuster rentals way back when but after not finding either all that thrilling I subsequently ignored the sequels. That is until a fancy new 4k box set came out last fall and I caved to shiny packaging. The whole multi-genre thing combined with plenty of monsters and apt amounts of snow and blue filter made these a perfect project for the Halloween through New Years window anyway. In the process of picking up the series after all these years something of an appreciation started to grow while getting dashed against the rocks a few times as well.
Let’s go all the way back to 2003, pretty much the center of that time when genre-mixing action flicks were quite the rage. Whether it was Blade, The Matrix, Resident Evil, Riddick, Equilibrium, AVP, Van Helsing, or Sky Captain there was a gap to fill after jingoistic muscleman flicks had been deemed out of style and untimely. If ever there was a time to launch a film series about a skinny British girl in a body-condom who punches monsters, this was it. And what teenage boy wouldn’t be down for hot chicks, guns, and monsters? Apparently this one.
Before going much further I’d best give the general rundown of how the series functions. Vampires and werewolves, oh sorry, Lycans are real and have been at war under our very noses for centuries. Vamps are ruled over by three elders who take turns being in charge while wolves are far less organized. During the first outing we learn of biological experiments from the lycans based on the two species shared origin from a man whose had a strange reaction to a plague which then split off into the monster bloodlines. A modern day human descendant of that bloodline named Michael is pulled into the conflict where he meets hard-ass vampire deathdealer, Selene. Forbidden love ensues, hybrid monsters are made, and ancient conspiracies unearthed.
At the time of it’s release I found Underworld’s storytelling to be messy, the world generic and ugly, and the action to be mostly boring. Some of these flaws have actually improved with age. The action, while still sluggish, is kinda refreshing after the waves of choppy editied action that occurred post Bourne movies and the over-choreographed stuff permeating every streaming service today. The blue-filtered eurotrash look now carries a comfy nostalgia. Even the story comes across more sturdy when compared to later cinematic abortions like the Transformers movies. There’s a level of gore, camerawork, and film-craft that didn’t feel like enough at the time but is damn respectable in retrospect.
Still; there’s plenty of issues with the biggest, one that is wildly tossed at more recent movies, being how it feels less like a full story and more like an ad for other stories that could be. There’s so much in the way of characters and plot points that are only half-realized either on purpose or out of sheer laziness. So many names and past events are dropped in the viewers lap as if they’re a big deal only the audience has no frame of reference to work with. Oh it’s so shocking that this guy I know nothing about has been fake dead all this time, oh and now he’s really dead. Some of this shit outright disappears. Like it always seemed that the blonde vampire, Erika has something more up her sleeve but you’ll never see her again. Characters are wasted and we’re promised that nothing will ever be the same even though we had the most bare-bones explanation of how this world worked in the first place.
Underworld Evolution came out three years later and this one was closer to how I remembered it. Right out the gate the backstory is made even more convoluted by trimming down the origin of both species as the two sons of Corvinus, one who was a vamp, the other werewolf (but not lycan as we’ll learn later on). The vampire Viktor is one of the elders who has now woken up with some lycan blood in his system, making him a hybrid apparently, and sets out to kill a shitload of regular vampires and free his wolfie bro from captivity because of purity or some such nonesense. Meanwhile we make repeat visits to a batch of new seemingly human characters who aren’t explained until roughly the 50-minute mark.
If evolution sounds like something of a mess that’s because it is. Editing and action have gone down in quality, character development is nonexistent, geography and proper chronology are often ignored. Character development is at a standstill while more plot points and macgguerns are tossed at the audience. It’s not the worst film in the series though it certainly comes close. Once again things end with the promise that nothing will ever be the same which still means nothing since we don’t even totally know what part of the world we’re in. Seriously it’s just generic Europe at this point.
For the third outing the series in 2009 the series takes the prequel route with Rise of the Lycans. Multiple dead characters from the first film are brought back and placed front and center in a medieval setting that makes the series feel the closet it’s ever been to Hammer Horror territory. We learn that OG werewolves were never able to shift between their man and beast forms until Lucian, the first Lycan is born. Seeing an opportunity the vampires use Lucian to breed a slave race resuting in a situation best described as Spartacus with monsters.
This one has a bizarre reputation that fluctuates depending on who you ask between best or worst in the series. Honestly neither is the case. Lycans is plenty entertaining with the whole gladiator meets werewolves vibe and tons of Bill Nighey scenery chewing. The issue here is that there's little to no new information for viewers to ponder. We already knew this story and the added details only make things more messy. When exactly did Lucian go into hiding as supposedly dead is a prime example since he’s fresh off victory at the end of this outing. Little of importance is added to the mythology and as a result we’re treated to a sorta fun movie that manages to jug in place.
In 2012 audiences were given Underworld Awakening which nowadays would likely be called a soft-reboot. We catch up with Selene only times have drastically changed. Humanity finally got hip to the whole secret history of monsters and set about wiping both species off the planet. During this cleansing both Selene and Michael are captured only for here to wake up years later naked in a cryotube. With the change in circumstances comes a full change to the supporting cast with new allies and enemies abound, the most of important of which is Selene’s daughter Eve.
Despite the usual array of failings (not limited to a giant CG werewolf) this is probably my personal highlight for the series. For what feels like the first time ever Selene actually has some development as she faces sudden onset motherhood in a more dangerous world where her kind of been driven underground and her lover is M.I.A. Action is vastly improved with far less posturing, there’s a new human character who exists as something other than a love interest, Lycans get more crafty, and we even get treated to the wonderful Charles Dance filling the Bill Nighy void. There’s development on the front of Selene’s super blood that she obtained in Evolution, a decent cliffhanger, and even a funny action-heroine one-liner. It’s not grand cinema but at least it feels like the series wants to be something more by this point. Then we get Blood Wars.
For whatever reason the fifth entry in any series is usually a dour note. At worst you end up with something like Phantasm Raveger but even a solid part 5 can be overshadowed by the titles surrounding it, think Friday the 13th Part V for example. Underworld couldn’t escape this trend and the result is Blood Wars which... fuck is this thing awful. There’s just so much wrong here beginning with a limp attempt to ignore the previous entry. Michael has yet to be found, though his fate is revealed later on and is so damn stupid. Eve is shoved off to the side for her own safety. As for humans I guess they just forgot that monsters roam the earth. Characters mention how they’ve been brought low in recent years but everyone’s back to living in big castles or militant railyards and there isn’t a single human character to deal with. Selene’s still got magic blood and knows the new vamps from Awakening but for whatever reason she’s still on the run for the events of the first two films as if anyone would care after humanity cut through the monsters like shit after a church potlock.
The current crop of Lycans is getting a leg up over the vampires and Selene is brought in to train a new crop of deathdealers. That is of course until yet another conspiracy rears its ugly head forcing her and (checks notes) David to flee northward to hook up with peaceful snowy vamps who meddle in the spirit world. More secret histories are revealed, another super wolf appears, and once again the ending promises that nothing will ever be the same (head slap).
Blood Wars is just lazy on every front. Action sequences are dull, the story is empty and forgetful, new characters are completely wasted, and the answers to lingering mysteries are head-shakingly bad. Adding insult is how Selene has totally lost her edge. Despite being a killer badass to begin with plus the upgrade she got in part two she’s now weak as a kitten. Girl even gets captured and strapped to a table so someone can rescue her. Mind you this isn’t in the exploitative sense to titillate the audience so much as a lazy way of trying to showcase how dangerous the new villains are. As it stands the series has gone out on a majorly underwhelming note.
After finally taking in the whole platter I must admit I’ve softened toward Underworld. The 1st, 3rd, and 4th installments are sloppy but entertaining enough while the 2nd is a kind of a comfy dumpster fire. Blood Wars should be cast out to sea but what are ya gonna do? It’s strange though how many facets of the franchise remain unfulfilled, the biggest being Michael. For being this super hybrid who’s supposed to change everything the guy is basically a supernatural version of John Connor. Each movie tells us he’s a big deal while refusing to showcase how. Currently his daughter is stuck with that same thankless role unless the series totally reboots and forgets everything that transpired over these five films. If Hollywood ever needs it I actually have an idea on how to continue/expand the current story that I’m a bit proud of as the main twist is pretty insensitive.
I’ve certainly prattled on long enough for today. Been fairly good at making time for all my various pursuits of late yet writing keeps falling behind. No more I say. As it stands there are articles on Ulraman, Candyman, new snacks, and a return to a long-dormant feature all in the works. Look for those all throughout February and beyond.
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