Manborg

The horror/cult revelation of the still very young new decade is undoubtedly Astron-6. This outrageous five-headed coalition (Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Connor Sweeney, Matthew Kennedy and Steven Kostanski) accomplished their modest breakthrough in 2011 with no less than two long feature films that appeal to the craziest of horror fans around the globe, namely the superb "Father's Day" and this demented little thing named "Manborg". I can only describe "Manborg" as a totally absurd and bizarrely creative throwback to the era of primitive video games, grotesque Science-Fiction blockbusters of the 80's and early 90's and the result of a bunch of weirdos brainstorming crazy ideas. The set pieces and decors of "Manborg" intentionally look terribly cheap and amateurish, the acting performances are deliberately and over-the-top inept and the special effects & make-up qualify as hilarious camp. The story is slightly less "all over the place" as the case in "Father's Day", but still very incoherent and chaotic. In a (distant?) future, the last remaining humans are at war against demons, zombies, vampires and a whole lot of other monstrous species from the underground. One soldier, who died at the battlefield, wakes up again in a laboratory, rebuilt as a cyborg and still in captivity of the horrendous demonic leader Draculon. Together with three other humanoid survivors (two crazed siblings and one deliciously bad-dubbed Asian martial arts hero) Manborg is forced to fight as a gladiator in a futuristic arena, but they are skilled and headstrong enough to revolt against their enemies. This is the ideal entertainment to watch at a Film Festival; together with a chock-full theater of equally avid and enthusiast freaks. The crowd literally goes wild upon being exposed to such a massive amount of gore, camp, deliberate incompetence, craziness and smut! The sound and light effects catapult you straight back to the days when you were playing "Space Invaders" on a prehistoric thick green-screen computer and the awful English dubbing of the #1 man character caused the entire audience to laugh out loud every single he opened his mouth. The screenplay is stuffed with tiny imaginative details, tongue-in-cheek references and lovely gimmicks. The design of the demons and garden variety of other creatures is quite phenomenal and they could actually qualify as genuinely horrific if used in a less light-headed scenario. Doctor Scorpius, for instance, is a much scarier looking villain than all the creeps in big budgeted blockbusters. This shouldn't come too much as a surprise, since most of the Astron-6 members have a background in special effects and/or animation. "Manborg" is marvelous and warmly recommended cult entertainment, if you have a bizarre sense of humor and a good sense of tastelessness, of course.

Manborg looked hilarious! The box art (although not as its IMDb poster) was enough to grab my attention immediately and it looked like I was on to a winner!

As an indie film director, and huge fan of grindhouse madness, I was so excited to get watching this.

Having sat the husband down for the night and promising him a good time, via Manborg, I found myself apologising after 20 minutes and turning the film off after struggling through another 15.

It was just too much!

I could see and understand where the film makers wanted to go with this, but to me, it just looked like they forgot to put the paintbrush down and continued touching things up more and more, until they had actually covered up the picture they had really wanted to show.

I'm glad it has done well though, I appreciate the work put in and look forward to seeing more from the team!

This film has a quality which allows you to transcend the usual role of audience, and makes you feel like you are with friends, albeit very weird (possibly deranged) friends who have a green screen. Based on those brilliant b-movies of our childhood, Manborg follows the adventures of a group of misfits who are valiantly fighting off the Nazi-vampire hordes from hell. With the likes of Number One Man and Justice on the team, there is never a dull moment. It had me on the edge of my seat throughout, and left me hungry for more. Expect excitement, chaos, unrequited love, science, stop-motion monsters, hover boards and so much more. It is funny, it's fantastic, it is gory and it is glorious. Possibly not for the feint of heart, but definitely one I would recommend (and have been). It's never too late... To be a hero.

Imagine an awe-inspiring vision of an inferno descending onto Earth, with machines and demons decimating the last vestiges of mankind. Such an apocalypse brought to life on the big screen could be something brooding and chilling. It could be epic.

This is not that movie.

Manborg is a cheap, silly, ridiculous little film, and it knows it. It has action, certainly, and plenty of gnarly bloodshed and gratuitous special effects. However, the delivery of the action, dialogue, and the overall story is so over-the-top, so silly, and so cheesy that it's hilarious. Most of the characters here sound like they came from a Mortal Kombat video game, thanks to the overdubbed dialogue. One character even tries to fight MK style. One lady fights like she came straight out of an anime, complete with cheap sound effects and streaky lines behind her. Most other special effects look like they came from the original Doom PC game, because they are that cheap. The film is short and pretty fast, but more importantly, it made me laugh pretty often.

The story for this is not an inherently bad idea: I kinda do wish somebody in Hollywood would make a big-scale apocalypse story like this, with the actual forces of Hell being unleashed on the planet (they totally blew it when they adapted Doom). If this same movie was handled with a big budget, big stars, and a distinguished director, it probably would have been awesome. If this movie was a video game instead, it would have been awesome as well. But as it is, the film plays things well within its limitations, keeping things purposefully small-scale and cheap, and simultaneously silly. There are scenes that reminded me a lot of other movies or games - The Terminator, Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, The Running Man, Fist of the North Star, and other stuff all came to mind. Regardless, the film is pretty fun, even if it lacks depth or originality.

This film is very cheaply shot and edited, with gaudy and weird special effects that looked like they came from the stone age. Acting is very silly and over-the-top, and with dubbed dialogue, it's rendered even more hilarious. Writing is very silly. This production uses some very cheap sets, props, and costumes. The music score tries so hard to be cool.

If you're looking for something awesomely cheesy and funny, this film will satisfy.

2.5/5 (Entertainment: Good | Story: Marginal | Film: Awful)

This is a "B" movie all the way. It is crazy and looks like it was done as a university project. I really enjoyed it. There is little gore, little money spent on effects ( there had better not have been as the effects were laughable) There was a lot of very imaginative stop motion and fun work with blue screen, every thing about this movie was cheese! not blue cheese as it did not stink, it is just... home made like. Lots of fun for non movie snobs who like movies that have no right being appealing but are. This is one of those. you can not help but to like it. Effects are about a 2 acting about a 2 but because it is done on purpose and is like a living cartoon I would bump that to 7. This movie is over the top and silly, everyone seems to be having a good time.