What is Roger Corman’s greatest folly? The candidates are numerous, but I’d say that designation goes to THE FANTASTIC FOUR, a cut-rate 1994 take on the Jack Kirby-Stan Lee created Marvel Comics superhero saga. The film was a legendary disaster (hardly a surprise given that its major publicity push was a cover story in FILM THREAT magazine) but has gained a following, inspiring the documentary DOOMED! THE UNTOLD STORY OF ROGER CORMAN’S THE FANTASTIC FOUR (2015) and the book FORSAKEN: THE MAKING AND AFTERMATH OF ROGER CORMAN’S THE FANTASTIC FOUR (2019).
The project was initiated and co-executive produced (with Corman) by the late German mogul Bernd Eichinger (1949-2011). Many people (including Stan Lee) claim THE FANTASTIC FOUR was made solely so Eichinger, who purchased the rights to the material back in 1986, could retain his option (which resulted in 2005’s Eichinger produced FANTASTIC FOUR and 2007’s FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER). It remains unreleased thirty years later, although unauthorized copies are very easy to find.
We’re introduced to Dr. Reed Richards (Alex Hyde-White), a young man who, as any FANTASTIC FOUR comic reader/movie viewer well knows, is fated to become Mr. Fantastic, the leader of the eponymous quartet. Reed and his pal Victor Von Doom (Joseph Culp) are involved in a botched experiment involving a comet known as Colossus that ends with Victor getting killed (or so it seems).
Dr. Doom
Ten years later Reed attempts another Colossus-based experiment with his colleagues Susan Storm (Rebecca Staab), her brother Johnny (Jay Underwood) and Ben Grimm (Michael Bailey Smith), which once again goes horribly wrong. Involved is a spaceship that crash lands on Earth, with the culprit being Victor, who’s transformed himself into Dr. Doom, an “overgrown tin can” who looks like a low-rent cross between Darth Vader and MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE’s Skeletor.
Reed and his pals survive the crash, and find that the comet’s radiation has endowed each of them with a unique superpower: Susan, a.k.a. Invisible Woman, can turn invisible, while Johnny, a.k.a. Hunan Torch, can start fires, and Reed, a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic, can elongate his limbs to impossible lengths (with his clothing somehow able to accommodate the stretching). Ben becomes a stoney golem thing known as, appropriately, The Thing, and gains an annoying catch phrase: “It’s clobberin’ time!”
The newly minted Fantastic Four convene to take on Doom, who’s using a magic diamond to do evil. Ben/Thing is the one holdout, but changes his mind and joins the foursome when the blind artist Alicia (Kat Green), with whom Ben is besotted, is taken hostage by Doom. Thus our heroes whip up some goofy-looking costumes and spring into action.
If the rumors about this film being intended solely as a business proposition are true there’s no point complaining about its many ineptitudes, as it apparently wasn’t meant to be good. Nonetheless, the awfulness of the costuming and special effects are impossible to ignore—the Thing outfit is especially plastic-ey looking, while the animated outer space set climax is downright surreal in its sheer ineptitude—as are the semiconscious performances and lamentable scripting.
Offsetting all the dreck are some legitimately good things, such as the cinematography by B-movie specialist Mark Parry, who uses his limited resources to surprisingly artful effect. Director Oley Sassone (a future episodic TV specialist) demonstrates undeniable low budget ingenuity, with swish pans stylishly utilized to hide the budgetary deficiencies of the fight sequences and an animated “4” serving as a transitional device. In the roster of nineties Roger Corman productions THE FANTASTIC FOUR registers as average, and could have gone beyond that had it not been for the one element that can be blamed for nearly all the film’s failings: the budget, which was clearly a fraction of what it should have been.
Vital Statistics
THE FANTASTIC FOUR
New Horizons/Constantin Film
Director: Oley Sassone
Producer: Steven Rabiner
Screenplay: Craig J. Nevius, Kevin Rock
Cinematography: Mark Parry
Editing: Glenn Garland
Cast: Alex Hyde-White, Jay Underwood, Rebecca Staab, Michael Bailey Smith, Carl Ciarfalio, Ian Trigger, Joseph Culp, George Gaynes, Kat Green, Annie Gagen, Mercedes McNab, Philip Van Dyke