This movie has "Based on an original idea by Charles Band" inserted into the credits, as has all the Full Moon movies. That is
strange on itself since ideas really aren't creditable in Hollywood.
Rumour has it that this movie was planned as a Dr. Strange movie but the rights were invoked by Marvel. Upon which they simply
changed a few small things to remove the likeness of Dr. Strange. The end-result is a Dr. Strange Plot with a character that is a
better Dr. Strange than the 70's Dr. Strange movie without being Dr. Strange.
Jeffrey Combs is Doctor Anton Mordrid, a supreme sorceror from another dimension assigned here to earth for the last hundred
years by the Monitor (a pair of blue eyes shown against a starry background) to guard against the Death's Head -- also known as
Kabal (Brian Thompson), a fellow sorceror who turned to the Dark Side and was imprisoned by Mordrid eons past.
Well, wouldn't ya know it, it's present-day New York, where Mordrid also doubles as the owner of a classy brownstone apartment
building and also gives academic lectures on demonology and the supernatural. Monitoring the world's news on his nine-screen
TV setup, he starts noticing the thefts of various alchemical substances around the world: platinum,
diamonds, etc. He immediately concludes that Kabal has broken free from his otherworldly prison; a quick visit
to the other side (the Dark Dimension? Starless space with an island floating in the ether) confirms this -- Kabal is on earth, and is assembling the alchemical spell to release the Hellspawn still
imprisoned, who will then run amuck on earth.
Enter the nosy neighbor and perfunctory love interest, Samantha (Yvette Nipar). As coincidence would have it, Sam's a special police
researcher into the occult (wow! what're the odds?), who sees Mordrid both in the apartment building and lecturing to assembled
interesting parties about occult motivations in criminal activity. He even lets her into his sanctum for some coffee, and so starts to
realize something big is up when she sees a sigil from Mordrid's medallion reproduced on a bloodless corpse's forehead.
Mordrid first reveals the "time-freezing" qualities of his medallion when he uses it on Samantha in the hallway for no particular reason
except to establish to the audience what it can do. Samantha then discovers that he's the super-secret building owner by
discovering her rent check sitting on his front table. All of Kabal's thefts and other crimes are done in such a theatrical fashion as to
be picked up by World In A Minute, for the sole purpose of giving Mordrid a clue to cling to.
Sam's cop friends also discover that Mordrid has a medallion with the same symbol as on the dead girl's head -- so they immediately
haul him in in handcuffs and charge him with murder one!
Given the problems here, it's surprising that the movie is as good as it is (not that it's good, but it could have been a lot worse).
It still has some nice qualities, mostly because of the Dr. Strange attributes that are still in the movie. The blue attire and ditto cape,
the medallion and the Gauldron. And lets not forget the dimension spanning abilities.
Doctor Mordrid
Full Moon Entertainment, 1992
Video Release - Paramount Home Video
September 24, 1992
But this one really made me laugh, since it should have read "Based on an original idea by Stan Lee."
September 24, 1992
Paramount Home Video
Color, Closed-captioned, NTSC, VHS Format
Directed by Albert and Charles Band
Written by C. Courtney Joyner
Starring:
Produced by Charles Band
See also...
