MORTAL KOMBAT: REBIRTH and LEGACY: (Almost) Flawless Victory

Mortal Kombat: Legacy (2011) – Directed by Ken Tancharoen – Starring Michael Jai White, Jeri Ryan, Lateef Crowder, Darren Shahlavi, Tahmoh Penikett, Matt Mullins, Sam Tjhia, Jolene Tran, Ryan Robbins, Ian Anthony Dale, Kevan Ohtsji, Shane Warren Jones, Peter Shinkoda, Kirby Morrow, Erica Cerra, and Tracy Spiridakos.

Conceived by Ken Tancharoen, MORTAL KOMBAT: REBIRTH is an 8-minute short produced in the hopes of getting Warner Brothers to greenlight a new MORTAL KOMBAT movie. Instead of a movie, Time Warner approved a new web series, MORTAL KOMBAT: LEGACY, a series of nine webisodes telling six stand-alone stories.

It’s phenomenal.

I’m glad I didn’t get around to watching either the movie or the series until now, because the second season of LEGACY will air in a few months and a feature film is reportedly in the offing for sometime in this calendar year, too. I can’t wait.

REBIRTH takes the MORTAL KOMBAT franchise and grounds it as a gritty, realistic (more or less), contemporary drama. Jackson Briggs (Michael Jai White) and Sonya Blade (Jeri Ryan) work in the Deacon City Police Department. The world of Deacon City is not-quite-apocalyptic but things are bad. There are killers running around by the names of Baraka (Lateef Crowder) and Reptile (Richard Dorton), physical oddities who are monstrous in deed as well as appearance.ni

I love the storytelling technique in REBIRTH. The entire 8 minutes promo is controlled by Jacks (not Jax, apparently). Sitting in an interrogation room, he lays out the status quo to a prisoner who’s face is kept in shadow the entire time. Jacks tells this shadowed figure about Reptile and Baraka, the latter responsible for the death of Johnny Cage (Matt Mullins), an ex-actor who’s been working undercover for the cops after his career went in the toilet.

I love this reinterpretation of the franchise, but Tancharoen went a bit too far with the gore and grotesque for my personal tastes. I will say, however, that even though I didn’t need to see Reptile munching on the flesh of decapitated heads he keeps in his refrigerator, it’s useful to clearly mark REBIRTH as something new. The video games are rather violent, of course, and this mini-film isn’t shying away that violence.

After Sonya joins Jacks in the interrogation room, the identity of their captive is revealed: Scorpion (Ian Anthony Dale). Jacks and Sonya want to release Scorpion so he can join some bad-ass martial arts tournament featuring the baddest of the bad. Given that he used to be the best assassin, they figure simply releasing him will get him an invite. Befitting the violent tone of the film, Jacks and Sonya want him to kill everyone at the tournament. They believe killing all of the Reptiles and Barakas is the only way to save the city.

The success of REBIRTH led to the creation of LEGACY, which is even better. There’s a few continuity changes – Johnny Cage isn’t dead and the supernatural element has been folded back in, and they are both positive changes. There are six stories told over the nine episodes and they’re all largely stand-alone. LEGACY doesn’t tell a story as much as it sets up a future story. In effect, it’s just REBIRTH done longer and better.

This isn’t a huge complaint because most of the stories work wonderfully and you can understand why a Michael Jai White or Jeri Ryan wouldn’t want to stick around for 9 webisodes, and that the studio might not want to pay them to stick around, either. Not knowing this, it was a bit disappointing to see them dominate the first and second episodes and then vanish from the narrative. I was also a bit disappointed that each episode reset itself – meaning that after every short film, I had to sit through a credit sequence and then a new introductory sequence that – if it were a part 2two – recapped what I had just seen.

This is a huge pet peeve of mine, and I fully admit that this is a #firstworldproblem. But when I’m watching a series on Netflix, why do I have to watch the same intro and credit sequences over and over again? There should be a “skip intro” button.

So, I was annoyed, but that’s because I didn’t understand we were getting nine shorts instead of a full film.

My favorite of the nine episodes was the Scorpion and Sub-Zero entry, which takes the time to establish Hanzo Hasashi as a good father and husband before he becomes the assassin Scorpion, but the Raiden entry is equally strong. In that single-episode story, Raiden (Ryan Robbins) is teleported into an insane asylum and captured. He spends the rest of the episode dealing with a disbelieving, lobotomy happy staff. He convinces a fellow patient (played by Revolution’s Tracy Spiridakos) to kill him, which allows him to reappear in a new location. Raiden’s story is the most tightly told, and really crackles (heh) with a narrative intensity at seeing the god of thunder locked away in an insane asylum and at the mercy of merciless doctors.

It’s rare that I make recommendations for readers to go out and buy or watch a movie, but if you like action movies or MORTAL KOMBAT, I definitely recommend picking LEGACY out of the bargain bin and giving it a watch. Much like the Thomas Jane-starring Punisher “fan movie” released earlier this year was the best Punisher film we’ve seen, LEGACY is far and away the best MORTAL KOMBAT film and an excellent web series compared to anything else, too.

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And if you like good sci-fi action stories with strong female leads, please check out my 2011 novel,HARPSICHORD AND THE WORMHOLE WITCHES.

Harpsichord & the Wormhole Witches. The First Novel of the Deep. Now Available at Amazon.com in Paperback. From Atomic Anxiety Press.

TRICK ‘R TREAT: Go. Watch. This. Movie.

Trick ‘r Treat (2007) – Directed by Michael Dougherty – Starring Dylan Baker, Rochelle Aytes, Anna Paquin, Brian Cox, Quinn Lord, Lauren Lee Smith, Tahmoh Penikett, Brett Kelly, Britt McKillip, Isabelle Deluce, Jean-Luc Bilodeau, and Leslie Bibb.

Somewhere around the middle of TRICK ‘R TREAT I began to realize that I’d found a new film to champion, so folks who know me should get ready to hear me yap about Michael Dougherty’s fantastic Halloween movie quite often over the coming years.

TRICK ‘R TREAT is a horror anthology film and owes a tip of the costumed hat to George Romero’s Creepshow. Like Creepshow, TRICK ‘R TREAT is an anthology that has a comic-book inspired visual feel, but unlike Romero’s movie, TRICK doesn’t need the comic images to link the individual stories because the stories are intertwined. Dougherty presents one story as the focus but weaves the other stories through the background. During “The Principal” sequence, angry old bastard Kreeg (Brian Cox) is used as a bit character; we see him banging on the window of his house, imploring his neighbor Steven (Dylan Baker) for help, but Steven blows him off. We continue on with Steven’s story but then later come back to see this sequence play out from Kreeg’s point of view.

Characters from each of the four main segments and the opening sequence pop up here and there throughout the film, as does Sam, a mysterious costumed “kid” (he’s actually a demon, I suppose, with a face that looks like a pumpkin shaped-skull) dressed in orange pajamas from the neck down, and a burlap sack from the neck up to cover his giant head. Sam is always around when bad things happen. The premise with Sam is that he’s here to help punish (or at least observe) those that don’t respect the traditions of Halloween, and this simple take is part of the charm (yes, charm) of TRICK ‘R TREAT: Dougherty treats the holiday as an historical tradition worthy of respect and not just as an excuse to hack and slash people to death. There’s surprisingly little gore in TRICK, as the fun comes not from watching someone be tortured and killed, but in the narrative that leads up to the violence.

Can I just say, “Thanks” for that? Look, I love me a good a slasher film (I can’t believe I made it through horror month without reviewing the three classics: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street – chalk one up for poor time management), but I don’t think horror movies have to be slashers, or their derivative, snuff-inspired torture porn followers. TRICK has as much in common with Magnolia or The Player as it does Nightmare and Halloween given it’s use of multiple narratives that intertwine to strengthen the whole.

There are four main segments and a brief, opening sequence that sets the tone.

“The Prologue” – Emma and Henry (Leslie Bibb and Tahmoh Penikett) are coming home from the nightly Halloween parade festivities. She wants to blow out the candle in the jack-o-lantern by the front gate but he tells her not to do it because you don’t want to mess with tradition. Emma rolls her eyes and does it anyway, as she sets about taking down all of the decorations. Someone – we find out later that it’s Sam – doesn’t like this and kills her. The message is resoundingly clear – respect Halloween traditions or pay the price.

“The Principal” – A fat kid shows up at a house to find no one home, but there is a tub of candy left out with a notice to take one. The kid takes a whole bunch because he’s a kid, but he gets caught when the homeowner returns. It’s the school’s principal, and Wilkins sits down on the porch with the kid as he starts to eat the candy, eventually throwing up blood and chocolate. Wilkins poisoned him and proceeds to drag him inside and lop off his head, burying his body in the backyard. Dylan Baker is really great as the nerdy killer, impatient when a group of his students show up at his door asking for candy and a jack-o-lantern (they’ll be the focus of the next story), and then edgy when his neighbor Kreeg’s dog sticks his nose under the fence and starts barking. While Stevens is trying to bury the body, his kid keeps yelling down at him from an upstairs window, and one of the bagged-up corpses he’s trying to bury keeps moving. Stevens just wants to bury the body and get back inside but the world keeps getting in the way. It’s interesting but it’s not overly compelling, but then Stevens goes inside where his annoying kid is still yammering away.

Which is when Dougherty springs his first real trick on the audience. Stevens shepherds his kid down into the basement, a big knife hidden behind his back. The set-up is that Stevens is going to kill the brat, but when the knife drops it’s not aimed at his child but at the head of the poisoned kid. Stevens didn’t bring his kid to the basement to off him, but so the kid could help him carve up the poisoned kid.

Love it.

“The School Bus Massacre Revisited” – The best sequence in the movie, this story shows a group of four kids picking up a mentally-challenged girl named Rhonda (Samm Todd). Macy (Britt McKillip). the leader of this group, has clearly designed this night to somehow turn out poorly for Rhonda. The kids go to the quarry, where Macy tells them the legend of the School Bus Massacre, which saw the parents of a group of special needs children pay the bus driver (who turns out to be Kreeg, though we don’t know this until the end of the movie). Macy is wonderfully evil, using the quarry’s rickety elevator to set up her scare. When Rhonda and Chip follow down, Macy and the two others are hiding. At the appropriate time, they jump out, pretending to be the ghosts of the School Bus Kids. Rhonda freaks out, starts crying, and Schrader tries to comfort her, but then the kids start to hear voices and they want to scram.

Tricks on them, though, because once Macy kicks the lit jack-o-lantern into the reservoir, bringing the actual School Bus Ghosts back. Rhonda seals herself in the elevator and watches the other four kids die as she slowly climbs to safety. When she reaches the top and heads back to town, Sam is there going in the other direction.

What gets me most about the school bus sequence, though, is the empathy generated when one of the kid realizes that something is wrong and completely freaks as he tries to break free, and then the sheer tragedy of him not being able to save his fellow schoolmates on the bus. He could have just split but he didn’t; instead, he moves to the driver’s seat and tragically drives the bus off the cliff. He was trying to do the right thing and it just went wrong. Totally gutwrenching. One of my favorite moments in film in a really long time.

It’s a fantastic sequence, built on real tragedy, local legends, and kids scaring kids. The story works on its own, but also reinforces the whole of the movie. TRICK does this self-reinforcement really well.

“Surprise Party” – A predictable yet enjoyable tale that sees virginal Laurie (Anna Paquin) dressed up as Red Riding Hood and looking for a man to bring to some secret party in the woods where her sister and pals are hanging out with the dudes they’ve already collected. There’s been a creepy dude in leather milling about and we watch him kill a hot young female in one scene, so when he shows up in this sequence and sets his sights on Laurie, well, even when the girls first showed up it seemed kinda obvious they were going to be killers of some kind, but that doesn’t stop this sequence from being enjoyable because Dougherty executes Laurie’s turn into the killer who’s actually a werewolf splendidly. The creepy leather guy is revealed to be Principal Wilkins, building on the earlier story and reinforcing the whole.

“Meet Sam” – The last story is straight ahead horror stuff, with Kreeg battling Sam. It’s the payoff sequence, as we learn that Kreeg was the bus driver that condemned the kids to death at the behest of their parents, and we get to see Sam in action. It’s good, solid, man versus monster action, which ends with Kreeg thinking he’s made it through the ordeal alive, only to have the School Bus Ghosts ring his doorbell, giving vengeance its due. For his part, Sam’s got to walk across the street and kill Emma for blowing out that jack-o-lantern.

All told, TRICK ‘R TREAT is a fantastic movie, well worth an add to your horror movie rotation, and a fine end to the Anxiety’s Horror Month.