Movies
Blu-ray Review: A Negative Look at ‘Spawn’
While we sit around here the States wondering where the f*cks our Blu-ray, those lucky(?) mofos in Canada have already received the HD release of Todd McFarlane’s Spawn from Alliance (who I consider the BEST of all distributors next to Disney — at least until I read this review). Directed by Mark A.Z. Dippe, John Leguizamo, Martin Sheen, Theresa Randle, Michael Jai White and Nicol Williamson all star in this 1997 live-action adaptation of McFarlane’s Image record-breaking comicbook. Check out Mike Pereira’s negative review by reading below. Maybe we’ll get a real transfer in the future?The Film
Todd McFarlane’s Spawn has always been one of my favorite comic books. From the time the comic burst onto the scene in 1992, I was instantly attracted to the character’s wild origin consisting of a murdered CIA agent who agrees to be a general in Hell’s Army, in order see his wife one last time. The material was a subversive work that stood out from the crowd. Five years later, the feature adaptation hit the big screen. I dug it at the time, most likely do to my undying devotion to the character. Spawn makes its blu-ray debut, thirteen years later. My perception of the film has definitely changed.
The CGI visual effects are still pretty impressive, probably all the more considering it didn’t have the largest budget at the time. Aside from that, there isn’t much else going for this misconceived adaptation. Aside from some truly sloppy storytelling, the filmmakers’ biggest mistake is watering down the character in order to make it more accessible to a wider audience. Problem is Spawn, at its very essence, as originally conceived by McFarlane, is a fairly dark material. As presented in the film, Spawn becomes more about its then, cutting-edge effects than about the story or characters. There’s barely either in Spawn which makes the material uninvolving. To make matters worse, the action scenes are poorly conceived and repetitious.
While John Leguizamo and his make-up work bring Clown vividly to life, the awful, humorless material he’s provided with makes the character irritating. Everyone else is pretty bad here especially the usually reliable, Martin Sheen as a very villainous, Jason Wynn. Aside from an extremely cool CGI-lead shot here and there, Spawn: the movie is an embarrassment for a character that deserves a lot better.
3 out of 10
Video
The MPEG-4 AVC 1080p transfer is an absolute joke. It looks like nothing more than an up-scaled DVD. Black levels and colors are shoddy to say the least. Detail is pretty much non-existent. I know Spawn was never an exceptional looking film but wow, this transfer looks like crap! HD, this is not!
2 out of 10
Audio
Spawn doesn’t come with a lossless audio track whatsoever. Too bad. One could only imagine how much this solid 5.1 Dolby Digital mix could have soared with an upgrade. As it stands, this sounds like the exact same audio mix from the DVD.
6 out of 10
Supplements
Unfortunately, none of the special features from the DVD was carried over.
Final Thoughts
Spawn is a terrific comic book character, fully deserving of a cinematic incarnation. This isn’t it. Sure, the ambitious visual effects are still pretty neat. Unfortunately, it never distracted me long enough from thinking Spawn isn’t anything more than a lousy movie. The terrible video presentation doesn’t help matters. This is simply an unacceptable blu-ray title that will surely rank as one of the worst ever produced for this amazing format.
Note: The fact Alliance Atlantis’ cover art is advertising this as the R-Rated Director’s Cut which it isn’t, should be enough proof that this package deserves nothing more than to suffer eternal damnation.
3 out of 10
At one point or another, nearly every culture on earth believed in malevolent entities that interfered with human affairs. While it’s more likely that this is due to our species’ universal fear of the unknown than the possibility that we share the earth with supernatural monsters, there’s a reason why so many horror movies base their scares on good old-fashioned demons.
Of course, coming up with visual depictions of otherworldly horror is no easy task, and that’s why I’ve decided to highlight six of the scariest demon designs in horror. After all, a creature feature is only as good as its antagonist, so this is one situation where the uglier the better!
For the purposes of this list, we’ll only be including movie monsters that are explicitly described as being demons from an established religion/folkloric tradition. We’re also only considering the demons’ scare factor – not the overall quality of the movie it came from. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own demonic favorites if you think we missed a particularly freaky one.
One more thing – while we won’t be including it on the list since it technically never made it into the movie, I’d also like to give a shout-out to Valak’s tragically unused true form from The Conjuring 2.
With that out of the way, onto the list:
6. Violator – Spawn (1997)
I’ve already written about how this ’90s Blockbuster Bomb is nowhere near as bad as most people say it is, but I’ll never get tired of insisting that John Leguizamo’s Clown/Violator is one of the greatest movie monsters of the ’90s. Not only was this ambitious union of digital and practical effects remarkable for its time, but it’s a genuine miracle that the crew was able to faithfully translate Todd McFarlane’s exaggerated design to the big screen.
While the comic book version of this hellish shapeshifter was already frightening, and I’d argue that the soft-spoken telepath of the HBO adaptation is even scarier, the special effects here really make it feel like Violator is about to leap off the screen and gobble up your entire family.
It’s just too bad that the rest of the film isn’t equally impressive!
5. The Demons – Hellboy (2019)
The 2019 Hellboy reboot may not be a good movie, and it left an especially sour taste in fans’ mouths after the cancellation of Guillermo Del Toro’s final entry in his proposed trilogy, but there’s still plenty of stuff that this ill-advised adaptation gets right. Among this R-rated romp’s good ideas, I’d argue that the film’s demonic antagonists are at the top of the list, especially if you suffer from some form of megalophobia.
While the film only briefly unleashes an assortment of hellish monsters upon the world during the final act, the Eldritch designs and Neil Marshall’s expert direction make these some of the scariest scenes in the entire Hellboy franchise. To be honest, I’d like to see an entire movie about kaiju-sized fallen angels wreaking havoc on modern society.
4. Satan – End of Days (1999)
End of Days is a deeply strange movie. A supernatural action-horror thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as he attempts to thwart the biblical apocalypse, there are moments here that feel like they came out of a parody. Yet, it’s precisely these idiosyncrasies that make the movie so much fun, especially when the filmmakers do their best to make Lucifer himself a formidable opponent for the man who took down both the Predator and the T-1000.
If you ask me, special effects maestro Mark ‘Crash’ McCreery knocked it out of the park with his surreal and undeniably Eldritch design for Satan. Hell, this winged monstrosity appears to have more in common with Cthulhu than anything you’d see in your average exorcism flick, which makes it all the more tragic that the finished film ultimately replaced most of the demon’s practical effects with CGI.
3. The Lipstick-Face Demon – Insidious (2009)
There’s no discussing iconic demon designs without bringing up one of the most popular supernatural antagonists of the past few decades, the Red Face Demon from Insidious. Also known as the Lipstick-Face Demon and The Man with Fire in His Face, he may have only been the main antagonist of that first Insidious film, but this memorable villain has since become the mascot of the entire series as well as proof that familiar iconography can still be scary if presented properly.
That being said, it’s Joseph Bishara’s consistently freaky performance that makes Red Face such a haunting character, with his exaggerated movements and facial expressions helping to bring the design to life. Of course, I’m of the opinion that the demon’s affinity for Tiny Tim songs might just be the scariest thing about him!
2. The Mimic – The Mortuary Assistant (2026)
The live-action adaptation of Brian Clarke’s The Mortuary Assistant may not be quite as scary as its source material, but you’ve got to hand it to the filmmakers for recreating the game’s paranormal antagonists so faithfully – especially since they weren’t exactly working with a Hollywood budget.
Sure, the team benefited from the fact that the most popular of these demonic entities, the grinning Mimic, boasts a relatively simple design consisting of a pale, emaciated body and a doll-like face with uncanny proportions. But I love how they added a corpse-like texture to its skin. Mark Steger’s eerie performance also enhances the effects work and helps to make this one of the most memorable monsters on the list.
My only real gripe with this design is that they gave the Mimic a nose, removing some of the charm of that original design.
1. Porcelain Jesus – Belzebuth (2017)
Emilio Portes’ Belzebuth is a criminally underrated religious horror flick, so it stands to reason that it also features one of the scariest demons on this list. I know I’m technically bending the rules here, as the creature that appears in the film isn’t really the demon itself but a statue that was possessed and corrupted by it, but I believe this blasphemous design speaks for itself.
Over the course of the film, the demonic antagonist possesses a series of unfortunate victims before eventually settling on a porcelain recreation of Jesus, with the ensuing monstrosity chasing our lead characters during the flick’s scariest sequence. As with any piece of religious horror, your fright-mileage may vary depending on your respect for holy iconography, but I’m of the opinion that this design is scary enough to transcend religious barriers.
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