“Staff Picks” is a deeper look into movies that we love here at Video CULTure. Each edition of this column will focus on a single film that we think you should check out, either for the first time or for a long-overdue revisit.
By Patrick Bartlett (Twitter: @alleywaykrew)
In retrospect, it’s really amusing to me that despite my parents’ attempts to shelter me by not allowing me to watch R-rated movies until adolescence but, if it was ostensibly a superhero movie… that was totally fine. It didn’t matter that a film like “Darkman” was INCREDIBLY violent (more so than the horror movies I had to go to friends’ houses to watch), it was like “well, he’s obsessed with superheroes, so this is okay.”. As I said, it’s amusing but it’s also something that I’m incredibly grateful for because as a result of seeing it at a formative time, “Darkman” was absolutely seminal to me. In addition to being a rad mashup of superhero and monster genres (which I already loved), it was my introduction to Sam Raimi. Raimi would end up being not only one of my favorite filmmakers but massively responsible for shaping my view of what cinema should be.
The story behind the creation of “Darkman” is a tale in and of itself. Much like me as a kid, Sam Raimi grew up loving superhero comics. When he started to break through as a filmmaker after the first two “Evil Dead” films, he tried desperately to direct a big screen superhero adaptation. The problem was that studios seemed to only have enough faith in his ability to give him a shot at a studio movie… but not enough to give him access to a character like Batman or The Shadow like he wanted. The ultimate result of their hesitation was that Raimi created a character that was ostensibly a mashup of both Batman and The Shadow along with elements of classic Universal monster stuff like “The Phantom of the Opera”, “Frankenstein”, and “The Invisible Man”. The outcome was something that still feels fresh and unique even now decades later.
The plot of “Darkman” is equal parts superhero and monster origin story. A scientist named Peyton Westlake (in what I still believe is Liam Neeson’s most interesting performance) is trying to develop an artificial skin to help burn victims. The problem is that he can’t get it to last more than ninety-nine minutes. He has a breakthrough and discovers the secret seems to be the fact that the time limit only applies to the skin in light… shortly before he’s murdered in his lab. His lawyer girlfriend and would-be fiancee, Julie (Frances McDormand. She once described the role as “the first bimbo she’s ever played.”) has found a document that proves that a wealthy real estate developer is engaged in shady dealings. He wants it and a local crime boss named Robert Durant (played by Larry Drake, who I’ll gush about later on) also wants the document. When Durant goes to get it from Westlake’s lab, Westlake has no idea about any of what’s going on and therefore can’t satisfy Durant… so the good doctor is tortured and left for dead before the document is recovered and the building is rigged to explode. Peyton ends up miraculously surviving the blast. In his subsequent treatment, he loses the ability to feel anything at all in an attempt to make sure he can’t feel the agony of his severely burned body. This loss of feeling gives him low grade super strength (apparently due to the adrenal overload). It also keeps his injuries from incapacitating him. The other side of all that is he also seems to become mentally destabilized in the process. I’m still not sure all these years later if it’s the treatment that caused him to go over the edge or everything that happened to him before said treatment. Regardless, the man he formerly was still exists but is now at odds with his own desperate for revenge. He works on a mask of his former face to reconnect with Julie while also planning violent retribution on those that have turned him into what he’s become.
From there, it’s as much a superhero action picture as it is a monster/horror movie. You can really see both genres perfectly coexisting side by side in what is a hell of an achievement by Sam Raimi. Sure, “Robocop” did something similar a few years before… but that was ostensibly a gory action movie with a helping of satire on the side. “Darkman” manages to more or less take on the structure of a horror movie while Westlake dispatches members of Durant’s crew but Raimi does it in a way that never leans too far into horror as much as simply offering legitimate thrills. It never frightened me or anyone I’ve ever known who’s grown up with it. That’s really saying something for a filmmaker who at that point was seen primarily as a horror director. He manages to capture something that I don’t think anyone else making stuff based on comic books really did at the time in that it actually felt the way comic books feel… especially stuff from the era that Raimi would have grown up with. There’s a legitimate fun to “Darkman” while never tonally straying too far from where it needs to be. A lot of filmmakers (especially at the time) seemed to treat comics as a joke and something to be ashamed of, Raimi knew exactly how much humor to inject into the proceedings to keep everything fun while also playing up the other genre elements to maximum effect. It’s an incredibly tricky balancing act but if you told me what he accomplished here is what got him the “Spider-Man” job around a decade later, I would not be at all surprised.
Also, the fact that Raimi was able to attract the cast he did certainly didn’t hurt. Raimi obviously wanted Bruce Campbell due to their friendship and frequent professional pairing. He also considered someone like Bill Paxton. However, Liam Neeson seems to be exactly aware of what’s needed to bring the character to life in a way that I’m not sure that a lot of the other actors vying for the role would have. He’s tragic but also heroic. Funny one moment, terrifying another. All while being sympathetic and likable. He’s grounded while also occasionally over the top. It’s great work. Frances McDormand isn’t given a whole lot to do with her part but does imbue the Julie character with a strength that I don’t believe it would have had otherwise. The weakest link really is Colin Friels, who plays Strack, the character that will ultimately end up as the big bad. I don’t really think it’s his fault though. He does a fine enough job and he’s memorable in the role… just not as memorable as Larry Drake’s take on Robert Durant. Larry Drake became known because of a role in “L.A. Law”, which I admittedly have never seen. Regardless, Drake has always been an icon to me in no small part due to his performance in this film but also because of an episode of “Tales From The Crypt” titled “And All Through the House” that scarred me for life and for the cult slasher classic, “Dr. Giggles”. In “Darkman”, he is 100% a believable badass while not necessarily looking like what you might imagine one to be. There’s just something in his performance that makes him the perfect foil for a character that feels as dangerous as Darkman himself does. He may not be the big bad in the end but he’s unquestionably the strongest villain of the piece.
I want to be clear: this film is more important than it ever gets credit for being. I’d put it up against Burton’s original “Batman”, released the year earlier as a legitimate contender for the best superhero movie of the period. Burton’s film may have been more influential (and maybe influenced this a bit) but even though “Darkman” isn’t based on any previously existing superhero, Raimi’s love for the source material shines through in a way that is unique for the time and is still impressive today. “Darkman” is a statement from Raimi as a filmmaker in a way that is incredibly endearing to me. He’s not someone embarrassed to be working on comic book or genre films, he’s someone that loves this stuff and is going to do his best to show you why and hopefully fill you with the same joy he feels. It most definitely worked for me as a kid. It still does to this day.
To find out where this film is available to stream, click here: Just Watch