Black Scorpion

I had just seen another Roger Corman film, "The Death Artist" less than a week before this was on, and I found that film very funny and entertaining. I have also seen another Corman film, "Sawbones," which was quite entertaining in itself, so I had high hopes for this one and it very, very much let me down.

The only "good" part of "Black Scorpion" is a cheesy villian called "the Breathtaker," who looks and acts about a serious as the villians in "The Power Rangers," and I guess is supposed to want to take over the city by spraying toxic chemicals or something silly like that. It sounds dumb, and is, and even "The Breathtaker" had his dull moments(like what was with all of his bumbling villian apprentices, especially two annoying female wrestlers, and where, by the way, did he get the power to fly?), but he was better than anything else in the movie. My only major problem with him was not even necessarily related to the character itself, but I must wonder why different actors were used to play The Breathtaker and the, uh, person behind the Breathtaker's mask? Did whomever was in charge of casting think that one or the other of them couldn't pull off the effect by themself? Was the voice of the Breathtaker too "ugly" to have his face revealed, which more or less makes his human counterpart some himbo cast only for his looks? Because that's not very fair to either of them, but I suppose even that discrepancy with "Black Scorpion" did not TOTALLY ruin the film for me...

What ruins "Black Scorpion" is its stupid title character, some bimboey "police officer" named Darcy, (Joan Severance) who, as a cop seems to masquerade as a prostitute with some..."real" prostitute until her daddy(Rick Rossovich, who, as a result of utterly cheap casting looks about the SAME AGE as Severance)is for some reason gunned down by the local DA, and Darcy gets canned(or suspended?) for police brutality after she goes to confront him in jail. A combination of seeking justice for her father's death and letting down her dull prostitute friend inspires Darcy to become the "Black Scorpion," a female superhero that goes around saving...other prostitutes, or at least not-very-properly-dressed people from bad folks, who all seem to somehow be connected to the Breathtaker. I really didn't know how the Black Scorpion's saving the world connected to the Breathtaker, except somewhere in the middle half, Darcy/The Black Scorpion suddenly realizes that he must have been involved in her father's death. Abruptly after that, it suddenly jumps to "who is the Breathtaker?," so what was the point of all of that other junk? Who knows and the character of "Darcy," her charisma-free boyfriend and prostitute friend, and pretty much everyone else were not interested enough for me to make any kind of exceptions to not-very-well developed writing. If people want to make a stupid, intentionally campy film, they can at least make it a WELL-WRITTEN stupid, intentionally campy film, as "Sawbones" and "The Death Artist" proved to be. What went wrong with this one?

Ever since the original "Superman" film from the late seventies, Hollywood has been conducting a long-running love-affair with the comic book superhero. Most of the well-known figures from the Marvel and DC comics stables have been given their own film franchises- Superman, Batman, Spiderman, The Hulk, Captain America, The Fantastic Four, X-Men, etc. Indeed, many more obscure figures have also been adapted for the cinema; until the recent film came out, for example, I had no idea that Thor was a crime-fighting superhero as well as a Norse god.

One curious exception to the rush to turn superheroes and superheroines into film stars is Wonder Woman, even though she was given her own long- running TV series, starring Lynda Carter, in the seventies. One explanation I have heard for this omission is that, although Wonder Woman was originally conceived as a symbol of female empowerment, her skimpy costume makes her today more of a male fantasy-figure. Hollywood producers are therefore worried that they will be accused of sexism if she keeps her original costume and of cowardly political correctness if she is forced to change it for something less revealing. Far safer, therefore, to steer clear of her altogether.

Roger Corman, however, appears to be quite unworried about allegations of either sexism or political correctness, because he acted as the producer of "Black Scorpion", a film whose eponymous heroine wears a costume quite as scanty as Wonder Woman's. Unlike most of the other superheroes who have become the subject of films she was an original creation, not derived from a comic book. (A "Black Scorpion" comic book came later). Actually, the word "original" might not be entirely appropriate in this context as the Black Scorpion shares many traits with other crime fighters, especially Batman. Like Batman, but unlike Superman or Spiderman, she does not actually possess any super powers, so has to rely upon strength, agility and technology, including a Batmobile-style car, to overcome the bad guys.

Like all self-respecting superheroes, the Black Scorpion keeps her real identity a close secret. Batman hid behind the millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne and Superman the mild-mannered, bespectacled journalist Clark Kent, and the Black Scorpion's alter ego is Darcy Walker, whose day job is that of a police detective. Darcy, however, finds herself frustrated by the limitations of police procedure, especially after her own father is murdered, and therefore moonlights as a freelance vigilante, a role in which she need not bother with all that civil liberties stuff about not beating suspects up or reading them their Miranda rights.

If this scenario were taken at all seriously, it could have formed the basis for an intriguing "Dirty Harry"- style thriller about the ethics of law enforcement, but "Black Scorpion" is not a film that takes itself seriously at all. Darcy is not so much a Dirty Harriet as a Batwoman, the model for the film being the camp "Batman" TV series of the 1960s rather than Tim Burton's rather brooding, Gothic interpretation of the Batman mythos. There are, however, certain parallels with Joel Schumacher's two Batman films which also came out during the mid nineties. Both the storyline and the characters are deliberately exaggerated and unrealistic, the whole thing being played more for laughs than for thrills.

We need not bother too much with the plot, standard superhero stuff in which the Black Scorpion thwarts a supervillain known as the Breathtaker, who has a particularly complex scheme for seizing power in the "City of Angels (for which, presumably, read Los Angeles) and who turns out to have been responsible for killing Darcy's father.

The heroine is played by the former supermodel Joan Severance, clearly cast more on the basis of her ability to look good in a revealing costume than on the basis of any acting talents, but in the context of a film like this acting talents do not really matter very much. One thing that does matter is that, although the Black Scorpion relies heavily on her martial arts prowess, Severance does not seem to possess any great fighting skills herself, and the fight sequences seem obviously staged. There is a contrast here with the work of other action heroes and heroines like Steven Segal, Jean-Claude van Damme or Cynthia Rothrock; they may not possess much in the way of acting skills, but at least they do know how to fight. The producers are never quite brave enough to turn the fight scenes into part of the joke, in the way that the "Batman" television series did , complete with captions reading "BIFF!", "WHAM!!" or "KERPOW!!!"

The problem with camp, self-mocking action films like this one is that they are essentially one-joke comedies, a joke which is forced to stretch a long way. The Adam West "Batman" was tolerable on TV in half- hour doses; indeed, if you were a child during the sixties (as I was), it was great fun. When the concept was extended into a standard-length feature film it became a bit tedious. "Black Scorpion" suffers from the same drawback, it is just one long, over-extended joke. 4/10

A cop watches the city attorney shoot her father with no apparent motive. She's thrown off the force for police brutality after confronting him in his jail cell, and vows to continue fighting crime by donning a dominatrix outfit and becoming a vigilante superhero.

Given this premise, the film wisely doesn't take itself too seriously, which makes its many glaring shortcomings more forgivable. Statuesque Joan Severance is appropriately amazonian as the title character. There are plenty of fight scenes; also a bit of nudity courtesy of a strip bar and an all-too-brief sex scene with Scorpion in costume.

Overall this is only an average comedy/action/thriller, even by b-grade standards. However, if you're a) a fan of Severance, or b) looking for a video with some intentional and unintentional laughs, a bit of softcore action and some butt-kicking scenes -- you won't be disappointed. My rating: 6/10.

Well, for a super hero movie it had potential, but it lost it somewhere.

Joan Severance is a hottie and surely fit well into the skimpy outfit she wore, however the lame script, lousy effect, uninteresting action and over all production made this a go nowhere film.

For the rest of the costumes were pretty hooky - bad to say the least.

Also the strip bar scene - even though I liked it, really had no place in the entire movie - as well as the opening scene of her and a hooker on the stroll. Not that I am against anything with hookers or sexy women, but somehow, it just didn't fit. Neither did the love story, neither did the overdone jokes about smoking, neither did the swearing.

Maybe a rework and a larger budget would have done this some justice, but it failed several minutes after the credits opened.

Black Scorpion is a descent straight to video movie as long as you do not think about it too much. Joan Severance plays the title character who resorts to vigilante tactics when the law does not work. Its good timing to go the mask super hero route especially since a new evil known as The Breathtaker is about to terrorize the city. Is it cheesy? Yes it is but in a good way. Its a B movie and it does not pretend to be anything else. Also Severance is good and its a fun movie, just don't expect anything too serious. The plot has several holes and some things make no sense (the jumping ability comes to mind) but what do you expect from Roger Corman? In the end its a good time killer that is some what entertaining.