Darkman III : Die Darkman Die (1996)

DJ Nik and Keith Bliss review "Darkman III : Die Darkman Die" !!! Enjoy ! If you would like to come on and discuss YOUR favourite movie send us a email with your movie of choice to : [e-mail] . Check out our great tiers on Patreon : patreon.com/happinessindarkness !!!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The deal. I believe I can repair your nervous system.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
That's impossible.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
It's never been done. The double cross. What did you
do to me? I reconnected you found it?

Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm all right, reconnected.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
It to this and the deadly mistake. Waste the freak?
Please no, I've got you. So it's true. I won
my disc and the skin quest like that bitch. Jeffy

(00:38):
Arnum Fosslo dark Man three, Die, dark Man Die? Shall
we ball?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
And Welcome to our three one hundred and eleventh episode
of Happiness in Darkness, the Superior Movie Podcast where we
discuss superior movies Marvel, DC, dark Horse, Image and beyond. Naturally,
there will be spoilers, folks, so you have him warned.
I am one of your co host Niejineck as always
joined me as my superhero partner in crime and the
man who I love to discuss all are kinds of

(01:08):
nerdy and geekye properties with mister Keith Bliss. Hey Keith,
how are you today?

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Well? I can't complain too much. I live here in
North Carolina. We didn't get drowned out from the hurricane
that grazed us, so you know, all things being considered,
ah not too bad awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, I guess, as the as the good old country
song goes, it's a great day to be alive, because
today we are discussing dark Man three Die, dark Man Die,
or if you're of the German persuasion, the dark Man
the as Little Simpson's shoke for you guys. This movie
was from ninety six when directed to video, directed by
Bradford May who directed the previous movie we discussed, of course,

(01:46):
dark Man two, The Return of Durant. The story was
by Michael Coleary and Mike Weerb, while the score was
once again by Randy Miller. So getting the general impressions here, Keith,
you'd mentioned last week that you hadn't seen the Return
of the r but you had in this one. So
what did you make of it? On your rewatch?

Speaker 1 (02:04):
I had forgotten how bad this movie is. It is
terrible and not like a good kind of way like
you and I joke about and say, like the Toxic
Crusader being a terrible move, but we love it beat
either way. This is just one of those they made
a sequel to make the sequel, and it made no
sense whatsoever from the random outbursts from the main character

(02:26):
or the main villain to the superhero him having all
of his life's work saved on a single floppy disc.
God forbid. You know, he drops it, loses it, steps
on it, cracks in a half, whatever, all his life
work is gone. Just so many like common sense red
flag things were just completely glossed over for the sake
of this movie. Like when our hero gets recruited by

(02:49):
a doctor and he goes into this big warehouse and
there's nobody in there, red flag for the normal people.
For him, He's like, Oki, Doki, let's go and do
with this thing. And You're like, are you serious. You've
been on the run for I don't know how many
years at this point, and you're just like you literally
were like cool, I'm gonna I trust this person wholeheardly
that I met ten minutes ago because she says she

(03:11):
did this thing. You have no idea likes just oh
the random outbursts from the mob boss, like when he
yells at the TV over roid rage and I'm like, Okay,
that's a little on the head, so you know, it
is what it is. And I feel like this along

(03:32):
with was it. RoboCup two was very much a PSA
for the nineties, like drugs are bad, kids, don't drugs.
You had RoboCop with the weird drug the kick stuff,
and this was steroids. So like everybody picked a lane
and they just car crashed in the middle somewhere.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
I definitely think so, because you become a good point.
I think this was trying to be almost a PSA
announcement against you know, the use of steroids, you know,
because nineties gym culture and have you and that. So
this was pretty rampant. When it came to once again,
athletes and non athletes and people you know who went
to like, oh, you know, get get a great body,
and someone's like, oh, you will use the fast track

(04:10):
and we'll use steroids. Clearly that is not a good idea, folks,
so definitely do not do it. When it came to
this so far conclusive trap chapter of Dark Man, you know,
I mentioned the fact that, you know, there hasn't been
anything else since or ever, and I hope that someday
somebody will pick up this project again. Maybe Sam Raimi,
who was the executive producer on this, mind you, he
didn't directly, is the executive producer because this is his

(04:32):
brain child. The character Dark Man belongs to him. I
hope that someday he might either shop it around or
it becomes a series or such. Because the concept. I
really enjoy the concept of the character and of the story.
If you have good storytellers writing said characters adventures. This
one was completely insane. We thought the Return of Durant

(04:54):
was a little bit off kilter. This just goes right
off the cliff edge and down into the ravine. Because
and I felt kind of sad, like, this is how
we're seeing dark Man off, you know, at least as
far as we know. So I was at a little
bit disappointed with this because I did want it. If
it was this was going to be dark Man's last hurrah,

(05:14):
you know, I would have liked it to be a
better send off. And of course, you know, by the
end of this film, it does give you the idea
you could make more because spoilers, your character is still
alive and he's still doing his thing. But yeah, and
I had gripes with the ADR last week, and I
have even more gripes with the ADR this week, and
especially when it comes to our protagonist. But we will

(05:36):
get there shortly. Other than that, I mean, it was
it was just very wacky. I mean, we had seen
the way that once again, Return of Durant had been
directed by Bradford May and this is very much in
that similar vein, and we're going to make it as
crazy and off the wall as possible and just you know,
you guys, just cann enjoy it, maybe while shoving popcorn
into your mouth, because this does feel like a director

(05:57):
video film. No surprising in the runtime. This is barely
nineteen minutes long. I believe it's like an hour and
twenty six minutes. But as much as I loved visiting,
you know, spending more time with dark Man, I wish
it would have been under better circumstances. Also when it
comes to the treatment of certain characters and how they
are randomly disposed of and potential stories that don't go anywhere.

(06:18):
So and we'll get to that of course. So yeah,
by and large, I would say I was more disappointed
than elated when it came to discussing it another dark
Man film, because, as I mentioned before, this character does
have a particularly special place in my heart now that
I've had the chance to visit more with him again.
So let's get to our characters on the board, starting
with our titular character, we have once again my fellow

(06:41):
South African, Arnold Vosslu reprising his role as doctor Peyton
Westlake aka dark Man. So what did you make of
what dark Man got to do in this film, Keith?

Speaker 1 (06:54):
They made him a creep, I don't They don't know
his way of saying, I'm gonna beat around the bush,
like just they turned him into a creep for like
no apparent reason. I appreciate the actor. I like him
as this character. I even appreciate the fact that they
looks like they upgraded the prosthetics a lot from the
second movie, so they it was a nice incremental change,

(07:14):
But a lot of the character development we got from
the second one just completely went out the window in
this third one. In the second movie, we see that
he has a newer formula that lasts passed that ninety
nine minute mark. We pick up this movie. We don't
know what happened to that formula, and we're still back
to ninety nine minutes and we're just not going to
talk about this. So everything that happened in the second

(07:36):
one just didn't actually happen. The only thing that kind
of carried over was his secret Batcave and his little
robo sled thing that he traveled around New York City with,
which is pretty cool, and he has all this crazy technology,
but him as a character just seemed like it was
right after the first movie. He's very rage filled. He's
still very angry, which, yes, listeners, I'm aware he has

(08:00):
all his quote unquote nerve endings severed, so he has
uncontrollable adrenaline and causes all this rage and so on
and so forth. But as we all know, in the
real world that stuff regrows, so theoretically a lot of
this stuff should be regrowing on him and causing him
all kinds of pain and discomfort, which we're just gonna
gloss over. But he meets the doctor who allegedly worked

(08:24):
on his procedure in the first movie, and we catch
it via flashback that she was in the room doing
part of the procedure and he's like, sure, I believe you,
and just immediately, with not even you know, thinking twice,
agrees to go with her to this lab of wherever

(08:45):
and get this procedure done again. Never met her, has
never seen her, We've never been referenced to this character
at any point, and he's like Okioki and like jumps
in a car and drives to this warehouse because all
Dark Man movies have this weird infatuation with warehouses. I
don't know why, but every movie's something in a warehouse.

(09:08):
I guess it was just maybe cheap and easy and available.
But again, that would have been red flag. My spider
sense would have been tingling. I'm like, wait a minute,
why are we in some rundown warehouse with a tent
in the middle, like where there should be a sterile
environment like all this stuff. Nope, we're fine. It's just
because he needed that one piece of equipment which he

(09:29):
could have just waited and gotten, apparently because he had
a security guard. But again, just jumps like blindly into
this and gets pulled in all these directions and just
makes a lot of poor decisions. And then when he
meets Roker's wife, he turns into a creep and just
starts stucking her and the daughter. And I'm like, so

(09:50):
you went from superhero to super creep in two point
five seconds. And even the torturing that they did only
lasted I don't know, day or two. It was a
very short period of time. Like he gets captured, gets
that procedure done and then escapes the next day, and
I was like, Okay, that's that's awfully convenient. You would
have figured they'd have better restraints, knowing that this dude

(10:11):
is super duper incredible, hulk strong and apparently not. I
do like the fact that they did continue the portion
of him doing the voice training to and I gotta say,
intimidate to replace Peter's character in one of the Henchmen,
so like. I like that that they continued that aspect

(10:31):
of it, But a lot of it seemed like it
slid backwards in all that progress we made in the
second movie with the character development was just completely thrown
out the window.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
I do see your point. And I do wonder whether
using those rusty shares or whatever it was to remove
the you know, the the device he had in the
back of his head, how that didn't give him any
kind of tetanus or anything like that. But I guess
it's Dockman and he can do anything, and so even
rusty she is any effect on his skin or won't

(11:02):
sort of cause any infection because that is this raw
skin that he's cutting that piece of equipment out of
his neck. So I'm like Wow, Okay, yeah, Rossie, she
is on the ground use them, of course, because that's
what you do if you want, you know, immediate tetanus.
But I do agree to a certain extent because yes,
when he first first meets Bridget doctor Thorne, he is

(11:25):
at first suspicious because he's like, you know, you can
you found yourself here, you can go back the way
you came. And then she tries to make this whole
pledge of like you said, I was there when we
first operated on you. I've come up with this technology
and I'm doing this and she's I mean, and we'll
talk about to doctor Thorne in more detail later, but
I mean, she's very good at manipulating people. And so,

(11:46):
because we see this both with the way she treats
Peyton and the way she treats Peter as well, she's
playing both of them for her own goal and her
own ends. And so at first, you know, Peyton is
all like, oh, maybe this she is a doctor, and
she's a kindred spirit and so on, and she's trying
to work for the betterment of humanity. Maybe I can
trust her. And then, of course, once it turns out
that she's literally Peter's lover, and that she's not on

(12:10):
the up and up. He literally curses himself for trusting someone,
and we see that, you know, throughout the course of
this movie, after is like, how could I have been
so stupid to trust somebody? So he does, to an
extent realize that maybe he was convinced too easily, because,
like I said, at first, he is rather reticent in
following her or giving her any info, but then he's
literally giving her everything. And I will say this, I

(12:33):
did not trust her from the get go, because obviously
Peyton didn't see this, but we did. That it was
the fact that when we find that there's a tracker
on the case that he's given by the dude in
the department store or warehouse or what have you, that
we then see him talk to Bridget on the phone,

(12:53):
and You're like, if she's ultimately on the up and up,
why would she be going like through these very shady
means to fund Peyton. Granted he's very hard to find,
but that already seemed shady to me. So I'm like,
I don't know if I can we can trust this gal,
And ultimately that was the case. Other than that, I
think we tried to continue with this film that we

(13:14):
had continued in some themes of the the second film,
i e. The whole Beauty and the Beast thing, because
you know, we'd seen it where there could have been
some something going on between Darkman and our investigative journalist
in the second film. Here we kind of try and
we get it somewhat with Angela and somewhat also with
with Angela's daughters in Peyton, possibly, you know, trying from

(13:38):
a man who can't feel any pain to almost you know,
be still having his emotions, and the fact that maybe
he he does come across as a bit creepy, but
maybe he ultimately does enjoy spending time with Angela, even
when he's you know, maskters Peter, you know, going to
her daughter's play, which no surprise, is Beauty and the Beast,

(13:59):
and even before that he and he feels like that
he has some feelings for her, and he's even cursing
himself once again in his lab going you never cared
about anybody? Why are you caring about these people? Now?
You know you have to focus on your mission. So
I think part of him wants to believe that he can,
you know, have feelings for somebody again, like he had

(14:21):
in the very first dark Man film, of course, where
he'd lost his wife, and here, you know, he may
wants to hopefully to see if he can find somebody
else with Angela, because he clearly likes Angela and they
seem to have some kind of chemistry. Even towards the end,
even though Angela's just like I want to see the
face of the guy who say my child, thank you,
then Peyton just has to bubb her off into the sewer.

(14:42):
It's like, oh, so I guess dinner's off then, So
I suppose that was the case. But I did appreciate
with trying to show some of the more sensitive side
of Peyton that, you know, even though he is this
dark avenger and this man who can't feel any pain
and the adrenaline such, he does have feelings as well,
and maybe he would like an emotional connection with someone,
and so possibly, yes it is. It does come across

(15:04):
as creepy, but maybe it's his way of trying to
find an emotional connection, because Lord knows, the man has
not had any kind of emotional connection for the longest time,
and when he has, the people have died. That just
like we saw last time when it came to this,
you know, said investigative journalist who blew up in a car.
So I think that's also what they were trying to

(15:25):
do with this. We're trying to show the more human
side of Peyton and not just the man in the
in the fedora and the bandages and trying to you know,
help people out. What I also appreciate about this is
they did fully explain to us what dark Man's power
set was right from the beginning of the film. For
those you know who came in late. You know, the

(15:45):
whole thing of the adrenaline, the fact he has the
strength of ten men, and that what I have been
right he flies off the handle is because of this,
So that I did appreciate. Once again, my big gripe
when it came to this was Arnold voss Lou's adr recording,
because some of it was not convincing at all. Every
other no or as you know, lookout it seemed like

(16:08):
so flat. And I mean, you know, Arnold, if you're listening,
we love you. You know, fellow South Africa and everything
else is great to see, you know, a fellow South
Africa in the movie like this, But still I just
found a reading very very very flat, especially from him.
I don't know whether once again it was the actor
or just the way it was placed. It just did

(16:28):
not work for me at all. It once again it
felt like he was in a booth reading and didn't
put that emphasis on those big moments. They turned out
to be almost too cheesy and too quirking. Just you
didn't feel like there was desperation in the man's voice
when he was doing these things. But like I said,
you can be a great actor, but not necessarily always
be a great voice actor. So that was my main

(16:52):
problem with him. So I guess then moving on, let's
look at the lady who gets caught in the crosshairs.
We have Roxane Dawson as Angela Ruka. So what did
you make of Angela Keith?

Speaker 1 (17:07):
I mean, she's okay for what we you know, we
get of her. She's very much a clearly a domestic
abuse victim, just because of obviously how we see everything
kind of interaction with everybody in there. When she tries
to talk to her husband, he flies off the handle
and she's like okaymps are and kind of scurries off.

(17:28):
So clearly there's some issues going on in the home. Front,
but she's okay, she doesn't. She's there to, you know,
like you said, beauty and the beast, she's the beauty
portion of this equation. She is there to kind of
help the story along at little pivotal points, like when
the safe is open and she's like, oh, honey, I

(17:50):
closed your safe, Like she didn't need to tell him
that because hypothetically he would have known, but like she
just felt the need I did. Like the fact that
you know, she was playing along with some of the
stuff and he's like no, no, Like when Peyton's like,
it was me, not your husband, and she's like, I
don't know about that. And then when they go to

(18:11):
dinner and she makes a comment, he's like, I don't
know what you're talking about. Like it's the pieces start
to you know, fall into place, and she does see
what's going on, and the fact that she walks in
on him cheating on her, and she's like, we had
this conversation. So it's she shows her strength and her
weaknesses all at the same time. And I get to

(18:33):
give her credit because she does eventually try to leave
her crazy mobster husband. It's just he then turns on
and kidnaps her which you know is a thing. And
it's only because he realizes that, you know, Peyton has
been switching places and has been interacting with his wife
that he's like, I'm going to kidnap you, and I

(18:55):
am going to use you as leverage conveniently, and the
daughter is just also an unwinning victims of it as well.
I will say I appreciate her dropping. Was it like
a load of bricks or like two by fours or
whatever the hell it was on his character? And I
did chuckle. I don't know why I laughed, because it's

(19:17):
either he got his karma or reminded me of like
a like Batman Robin level of like silly shit that happened,
and I was like, this is so bad, it's good.
And then of course he pops up like Shredder and
teage mutan Ja turtles and he's like, look, honey, I'm strong,
and you're like, oh Jesus Christ, can't we just kill
him please? And then he does eventually get you know,

(19:39):
get his just desserts and the fact that she I'm
not gonna say, agrees with but allows doctor Peyton into
the emergency room with his weird liquid goo, which that
would have been Again, the red flags in this movie
are hysterical because daughter's burns, and I appreciate she was

(20:01):
trying to look out for her daughter and make sure
it gets resolved. But in the nineties we had plastic surgery,
and odds are good they would have helped with some
of these scars. But even the doctors in the emergency
room are like, Okay, you can come in here and
just dump this magic go on her face and just
run away and nobody's gonna be like the hell's going

(20:23):
on here? Like none of that. And even when she
sees him at the end, like as you mentioned, she
asks him to show her his face and you know,
that's a face only a blind dog could love. And
she's like okay, thanks, and just like walks off, like
I'm sorry. That is pure nightmare fuel. You see like

(20:44):
half a charred face, dude, jaw, like you know, his
tongue and his teeth, all that like looks like a demon.
And you're like, okay, have a good day, and just
walks off and I'm like what what, I'm sorry. If
you showed that face to her daughter, that child would
be in therapy for the rest of her natural life.
Like That is traumatic level shit right there. Kids like wow,

(21:08):
and she's just like Oki oki and he's like kay bye.
Like you have to laugh at the ending because it's
just so unhinged that, like, all right, I assume she
lived happily ever after. I don't know. I'm thinking maybe
she became the new mob boss we'll see, or she

(21:29):
turned everybody in because she knew where all the quote
unquote bodies were buried and had all this information on
all of his misdoings and so on and so forth,
because clearly the guy he was trying to get into
office didn't win, so we already knew he was going
down for all kinds of stuff. And you know, I'm

(21:50):
just going to assume she lived happily ever after, or
is now the kingpin of New York or New Jersey
or whatever the hell is takes place. It could be
Jersey City for all I know.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
It's I mean it is. That's why I was kind
of questioning that scene, you know, of I want to
see the face of a man who saved my daughter.
I mean, the guy was like Ryan Frederan, and then well,
I mean, what is the point of that? Okay, now
you know what Peyton looks like underneath his mask. Is
that so we're just going to go home and have chips,
fish and chips for dinner or some my I don't
get it. I mean, maybe it would have been more

(22:22):
meaningful had she either, which would have been probably just
as cheesy, but you know, I'm thinking nineties cheese. If
either she turned around rushed and embraced him and they
left it as just an embrace and I'm not saying
they had to make out or anything like that, but
it would have been maybe ething more heartfelt, if you will,
that somebody has shown Peyton emotion and you know, you know,

(22:42):
other than just you know, thank you or you're the
man and what have you. Because we even noticed that
even when Angela's daughter tries to, you like, kiss him stuff,
he's very like, uh, almost has this knee jerk reaction
like what are you doing? Or even Angela tries to
kiss him when she thinks he's Peter when he gets
to his surprise birthday party, and we see Peyton flinch

(23:03):
either because obviously obviously he's afraid that some might happen
with his mask, but also the fact that he has
not had human contact for such a long time, because
everybody's always always called him a freak and always has
been like, I would never touch that with a ten
foot pole. So it's almost like a new sensation to
him that people are because of you know, they don't
see his true face, and everybody's like, you know, trying

(23:25):
to give him kisses or hugs. I think it would
have been a much more potent moment, as I said before,
if Angela literally just hugged him, and that would have
been that. And I think we've been rewarding for Peyton
to feel that somebody genuinely was showing gratitude through a
physical action. And as I said before, we didn't need
a kiss or anything like that, because we know dark

(23:47):
Man doesn't get involved with people, kind of like Batman
for the longest time, he works alone. But I think
it would have been a nice little gesture and almost
a nice way to almost end the film as almost
like a Gothic kind of kind of moment where and
I think we've also been very sam Raimi where you
just literally have them embrace and then you know, you
cut to the narration of I am dark Man, I

(24:08):
will defend the world and so on. I think that
would have been a me personally. I think I've had
I written that scene, I would have done that, but
that's not what we got. So there's no point in
even putting that theory out there. But that's just my
two cents when it came to writing that particular scene.
Other than that, I mean, I do think that that
rock Sand did a good job playing this character. Like
you said, she is the battered wife. She obviously clearly

(24:31):
knows I'm sure what her husband does for a living,
because if she did, you know, clearly she'ld be incrabbly naive.
But I think also at the same time, she's had
to put up with his shenanigans for the longest time,
between obviously him being a mob boss and him clearly
cheating on her multiple times, because Bridgest is not the
first woman from what we gather that he is cheated
on her with. Heck, he was literally having sex with

(24:53):
his bridesmaid on the day of their wedding. So Angela,
I don't know what you were thinking marrying this guy either,
you thought you were going to to change him, I
don't know, But the wady the fact that your fiance
is literally having sex with your bridesmaid on the day
of your wedding. You're like that, you kind of tell
you this might not be the guy to marry and
that you clearly deserve better.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
But here we are.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
So I think that's that's all we because I need
to know when it comes up. But I do hope
that there will be a good future for Angel and
her daughter half this, and like you said, maybe she
might pick up the reins and become the next mob
boss and take over Peter's empire, whatever is left of
said empire. So I guess then let's round off our
characters with our villain and his paramour henchwoman take your

(25:36):
pic or so it seems we have the late Darlan
Flugel as Doctor Bridget Thorne and Jeff Fahey as Peter Rooker.
So what did you make of our good doctor and
our mob boss Keith?

Speaker 1 (25:50):
She was okay, she was. I guess I'm downplaying it
a little bit. As you had brought up before. She
plants a bug to find this potential individual, which again
we had never seen her in the second movie and
had no idea she was even looking for him until
this movie, and conveniently she happened to look for the

(26:12):
specific or I shouldn't say, look for have a bug
on the specific equipment he would need at this one facility,
Like what are the odds of that happening? Like was
she tracking all the equipment and noticed the trend? Or
what like is this the only medical supply depot in
wherever the hell they are? There's so many questions that

(26:33):
just don't make a lot of sense. There's so many
like just holes in the story that you're just kind
of like, okay, but how or okay, but why again?
Stuff that they just gloss over. Is it because she
used her feminine charm that she got the security guard
to do this? Or like did she bribe him in
blackmail him? Like you know, there's all these questions of like, okay,

(26:55):
but how And yes, I'm aware that I'm you know,
getting fixated on the little minor details, but those little
details add up because you don't see her being quote
unquote evil monihacal until after she has implanted that chip
in his neck, which didn't do what she said it

(27:15):
was gonna do, because she said it was going to
restore his senses and touch and whatever the case may be,
and clearly didn't. It was just essentially a taser for
the brain. Then you start to see her darker intentions
and darker side. Even when she's making this drug. She

(27:37):
starts down the dark path and kind of like veers
a little bit toward the light and goes like nope,
and then goes back. So like you see, she almost
has a crisis of conscience after sleeping with her boss
several times, and then you know she gets her just desserts.
At the end, she gets killed. Oh yes, sorry spoilers,

(27:59):
guys and girls and everybody in between. She does die.
But that wasn't a big surprise. You nothing that either
one of these two characters once you see their darker intentions,
or you're like, oh, I didn't see that coming. Well, Peter,
the guy who plays Peter only replays evil individuals, so

(28:20):
you see him on screen, you know he's gonna do
some sketchy stuff her the minute she implants the little
tracker in the back of her back of his neck.
You know, it's just all kind of sketchy things from there,
And it's just there was not a surprise element, Like
you didn't see this coming a mile away. You're like,

(28:40):
oh my god, what was gonna happen? Like no, like
I literally do, like, Okay, she's gonna eat it. At
some point, you know, dark Man's gonna break out, He's
gonna get rid of this collar pain thing in his neck,
because clearly, if he didn't be a really short movie,
what I was kind of expecting, and I get it
because they were trying to cut as much crap out

(29:01):
of this movie as possible is the serum that she
creates from his adrenaline and everything. Like I would have
liked a little more stress testing him other than him
just getting the implant and literally breaking out, I don't
know an hour later. I would have liked to see
a little bit more And it sounds so messed up

(29:22):
to say it, but like a little more torture because
you want to see like she's really like enjoying this,
like she's thriving by doing this pain and even Peter's character,
but you don't get any of that. He literally breaks out, escapes,
happens to him, steal the vial of the face goo
that he has, and the movie just kind of progresses

(29:43):
and you see her pop up and she, you know,
again uses her feminine charm to kind of persuade Peter's
character into doing things, and then ultimately Peter puts a
bullet right in her at the end when he tells
his wife like, look, I'm not cheating on you any
I just killed the woman. And you're like, that's not
what she meant when she wants you to stop cheating.

(30:06):
She just wants you to bury the people you're sleeping with.
Just stop sleeping with people. But that goes to show
you how unhinged Peter's character is. And I feel like
they were with his crazy mood swings during the movie.
They were implying that he's taking steroids, but you never

(30:27):
actually see him take steroids. So it was just this
weird intro to like this, I'm doing a drug sale
and you're like, oh, it's hard narcotics. And even the
guy's like, why do you need all these steroids? And
I'm like, I'm sorry, what now steroids? And he's like,
I sell steroids, like because that's the most lucrative market

(30:48):
in the world compared to and even the other drug
bosses like all the stuff you do, and this is
what you're focusing on. He's like, yep, I like steroids.
Like there's a scene that somewhere like they cut out
where like he takes the steroids as well, and that
would have explained his just unhinged outbursts at times, Like

(31:11):
as I mentioned before, he's playing the piano all calm
and chill, and he's talking to his henchmen, and you're like, oh, okay,
this guy seems like he's a sociopath. And Nico's like,
so what do we do? And then you cut to
the news and they mentioned this steroid death and they're
like it's roid rage, and he's like sort of and
just loses his marbles on this news report, and his henchman, Nico,

(31:37):
was just like okay, So as I was saying, what
should we do, and You're like, so this is normal,
Like it just seemed like there was a piece of
that buzzle, like again, dude shoots up with steroids, like
would make so much more sense. And the fact that
he wanted that adrenaline drug, which he does take at
the end of the movie for himself and not for

(31:59):
an army of guys that he can control, because as
we see, it causes ridiculous amount of rage aka roid rage,
but in this whatever formula they're they're calling it from
the dark Man serum, So like there's a lot of
these things that could have if they just you know,

(32:19):
I don't know, waited like five more minutes or like
the did one more rewrite that they could have done
a better story with this character or more character DIVI
I should say, a better story, better character development, and
these pieces that we all missed out on. Because again,
there's a conversation somewhere with the steroids and him taking
them that we just we're not going to talk about,

(32:41):
and that's all fine and dandy. And the fact that
he does eventually take it, that was not a surprise.
I wasn't like, oh my god, who would have thought,
like literally all of us, everybody who watched this movie
because of the unhingedness of him in the beginning of
the movie at that news report, the fact that he
took the story it's destroyeds, took the formula the dark

(33:03):
Man juice as we're gonna call it at the end
of the movie. It wasn't a big stretch. I was not.
At no point was I surprised by anything that transpired.
And then again, the fact that he gets the crap
kicked out of him and then dies, I'm like, well,
you kind of got what you deserved. This is very
much one of those movies where as we mentioned, crap,
there's ten minutes left in the movie. How do we

(33:25):
end this? I know, we drop stuff on the dude
and then other stuff happens and you're like, okay, and
then there's lots of explosions and like Acme chemicals kind
of level explosions, which just stuff's blowing up left and right.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
That's right, And of course we had to have that Peter,
you know, Peter and Angela's daughter be disfigured, so dark
Man could not use the formula on himself because he
has to continue to be dark Man, because of course
we're hoping to possibly get more dark Man movies in
some form of shape. So that was also I think
as soon as that happened, when when the daughter gets

(34:04):
you know, scarred with the natural gas, I'm like, okay,
I know where this is going. So Peyton's going to
have to sacrifice to see him and he's going to
have to continue as dark Man for the rest of
his days.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
Now.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
I actually had a question for you because you mentioned
the fact obviously that Peter kills Bridget, So do you
think it was just because of he was trying to
be being the maniacal person he is proving a point
to his wife that he was done cheating, or do
you think it might also been the fact that he
realized that she might end up turning the tables on
him and rather than use whatever they created to sell

(34:36):
on the black market, to literally make it legal and
become like big farmer, and he didn't like that.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
I think it's probably the ladder of the two because
at one scene where she's sitting in front of the
computer just having this open dialogue to I don't know
who that recording that she was making, and he kind
of walks in while she's doing all these like super
villain monologues that he's catching when that maybe she's going

(35:05):
to turn on him and try to either kill him
or steal the formula and you know, make millions of
dollars on the black market if they were smart, like
she said, there's the entire black market, there's the military.
There are so many legal ways to sell this formula
that they could literally get out of crime and be trillionaires.

(35:29):
So like this actually could have made him go the
straight and narrow per se because he wouldn't need all
the other revenue sources, because again, you sign a contract
with the government, you basically blink check that sucker. So
I don't know. I think it was just one of
those things, the same thing like in the beginning of

(35:49):
the movie where dark Man does selve the formula, but
he's like, I don't know how this works, dude, this
is your life work, and you don't know how this
figured it out. Like so, I think it was just
one of those things that they needed to show his ruthlessness.
And also he was trying to keep the formula for

(36:12):
himself even though he killed the source that created it,
which didn't make a lot of sense because he's like,
I'm gonna keep the formula. What if she put a
password on the hard drive or you know whatever. There's
so many things like he just again jumped to conclusions,
and this could have also in that one scene with

(36:32):
the whole roid rage would have made more sense because
he just blindly didn't think about it and just shot
her because he's like, I'm gonna take this all for myself.
Because of the steroids he's been taking, he's not thinking clearly,
and that would have been a good setup for that
specific interaction. But we didn't get any of that. All

(36:53):
we got was heard talking to himself and him walking
in on her and potentially hearing the fact that she's
going to steal the formula from him.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
That's what I think. So because she almost looks at
the going like almost like how long have you been here?
And the fact that she's literally doing this monologue, talking
to herself and possibly even recording it and not realizing
that Peter's right behind her, you know, not in the
necessarily a smart move use your inside voice, doctor Thorne
inside voice. But and yeah, the fact that she's like, yeah,

(37:21):
I could, we could make so much more money if
we made this legal and you know, either sold this
to a pharmaceutical company or created our own kind of
like what we got in the Toxic Avenger, where you're
literally creating these wonder drugs, but you know they might
have worse effects than they actually promise that they do.
So it almost reminded me a little bit of what
we had talked about when we did talk the recent

(37:42):
version of the Toxic Avenger. Yeah, because I think Bridget
I don't know whether there's ever really been a decent
bone in her body other than just using what her
technology in her know how just to make money and
not necessarily benefit mankind. I think she's almost supposed to
be a direct opposite to Peyton, where Peyton, yes, he

(38:03):
wants to solve his own situation when it comes to
his face, but ultimately then you know he wants to
be able to share this with the world as goods.
As a decent or regular scientist would do, is you
just use your findings to benefit humankind and not just yourself.
And so I think it's almost like that. That's what
it's giving us an example of a scientist who will

(38:25):
do this more for the benefit benefits if you have
humanity in the other because they want to make a profit.
And I think that is exactly what Bridget is doing
when she thinks about this, like oh no, we're not
going to help people necessarily. It's like we're going to
make this drug, but it's about making money. It's not
about curing whatever we can cure or like you said
so to the government or what have you. And the

(38:46):
fact that she mentions that this might have side effects
on certain people or because it comes from Peyton, such
as making incredibly paranoid, the mood swings and such, I
think it very much is supposed to let you make
you understand that Peter is taking steroids, which will probably
explain why he's so fixated on the steroid concept and

(39:08):
the fact of wanting to be strong. It almost seems
like he has that complex of the strong man, and
so it's clear thing on one side for himself to
benefit himself as and be physically stronger and more imposing
to where he can take down anybody by pure physical strength,
or as he originally wanted to have literal mindless goons

(39:29):
who are superpowered and can literally you take care of
any problem he has. Granted that does not make them bulletproof,
just like we saw in this film. And that's why
I think he ultimately kills her because of the fact
that he realized that. One he's probably incredibly paranoid and
has these thoughts, but secondly, you know, he clearly understood
that she's getting wise and she even Bridget says, I

(39:51):
kind of got what I deserved because I double crossed you,
and I attempted to double cross Peter. And this is
kind of my just deserts and look, I don't when
it comes to people being killed and such in this film.
Peyton has way too much sympathy for certain people, especially
when it comes to Bridget, because when Bridge is lying
on the floor dying, we see Peyton going over a Bridget, No,

(40:14):
don't die and like, dude, she literally double crossed you
and she almost caused your death. What the hell are
you doing? But once again, it's supposed to maybe show
you what the human side of Peyton, that even though
he might be the beast of this picture, he's the
one with the biggest heart where he won't kill his
opponents or his villains, and he will literally feel sorry

(40:34):
for those who die. So I think that's probably what
it's supposed to. But still I was not with Peyton
when he was like, why are you wasting any tears
over this woman who's clearly villainous and evil and does
not deserve anybody to cry over her gravel over her
dead body. That's just my thoughts. But yeah, I think
Peter is supposed to be the poster child for what
happens if you do indulge in take steroids where it

(40:58):
will make you incredibly paranoid, it will make you have
these insane mood swings and just making crabbly violent person.
And we see this, Like you said, he flies off
the handle for the most random of reasons. Also, I
think at the same time, he does fit that mold
of a dark Man villain that we have seen all
three of these movies, where they are incredibly exaggerated and

(41:18):
over the top. You know, we've seen with Durant, we
see both in one movie one and two. Here we
see it with Rooker. So it is it does, I
think very much fit the dark Man Rogues gallery, where
you have the completely off the wall villains who probably
would not even exist in our reality, but the very
comic bookie. And since of course this was a written

(41:39):
original concept by Sam Raimi originally he's the executive producer
on this, he wants to make this, obviously as much
of a dark comic book as he can, and Peter
literally seems to literally have jumped.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
Off the page of old school.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Noir comics or maybe even what was considered to be
a comic book villain at the time. You know, these days,
of course a villain is much such more multi layered
and has more of a personality. But I think at
the time mid nineties, this is what for most people
would be perceived as a comic book villain. So, and
like you said, Keith jeff Ahy does have a p

(42:14):
the resume when it comes to playing villains. There was
no surprise that he was the villain in this picture either.
So before we get to ratings, was there anything else
you would like to add on our movie that we
might not have talked about.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
No, I don't think so. I'm trying to think. But
we've destroyed this porn movie, this this B or C
level movie, depending on how you look at it, pretty well.
So no, I think I'm good. What about you? Do
you think of anything we missed?

Speaker 2 (42:40):
No, I don't think so, but I guess then I suppose.
I mean, I know this might be a rhetorical question
of the three movies, since we've done all three. Now
you know, I know you weren't around with you to
do the first one. But if you were to categorize them,
what should we say rate them? How would you rate
them in order?

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Good, terrible, horrible?

Speaker 2 (43:02):
So, of course the first document is always at the
top of the list, right.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Correct, The first one is the good one. The second
was okay because they were trying to continue the story,
which I get. So that's why it gets an okay
and then they changed actors, they improve the prosthetics, so
it gets it okay, but by this one, it's just
it's terrible. This was a movie that didn't need to
be made. There was no tie in to the second

(43:29):
or the first one. Hell, we even got a recap
at the beginning of the movie before the credit started
as to how we got to this point. So you
literally could have just watched this third one and had
no idea about the other two, and you still would
have had the same end result of like, ugh, so yeah,
this is just it's a terrible movie, no nice way
of saying it. Actors are good, but the movie itself
is terrible.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
I mean that's why I felt that. As I said,
you know, we've we've mentioned this about multiple films that
we've discussed on this podcast that would make a good
TV show. Just the way we've got that narration, it
seemed like the kind of narration you would get at
the start of every episode had you had a serialized
version of dark Man, as in, you know, I am
dark Man, this happened to me, and so on, and
now I fight crime and give voice and defend those

(44:13):
who can't defend themselves. While looking for the perfect formula,
so very much felt like the narration you would get
of a nineties TV show, you know, or even of
this period. Heck, maybe even now. But I did appreciate that.
But I'm right there with you. To me is dark
Man the you know, returna Durant and die dark Man
Die when it comes to the order of quality. But

(44:35):
that doesn't stop me. I think personally hoping that somebody
will pick this property up at some point because it
would be cool to have. I mean, I'm I know
we're not big fans of remakes when it comes to
this podcast, but personally, I would like to see a
new take on dark Man. So many years removed, you know,
so hopefully, you know, thirty years almost thirty years removed

(44:56):
from this film. I think, you know, the time, we've
spent enough time away from it that we could do
something with it, like a TV show or like another movie.
But time will tell, so I guess. Then getting to
rating this movie solo, Keith, what do you give this
one out of ten?

Speaker 1 (45:15):
I'm gonna give us one of those grades. It's a
six point five. It's barely passable because I like the characters.
The r side of the actors. But it's not something
I would inflict upon anybody if I had the option.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
That's totally fair. I'm right there with you. I'm also
gonna go six and a half an out of ten.
I'm glad I watched it because I did. I was
glad we got to round out this franchise and this trilogy.
But yes, it's definitely, definitely just got progressively worse as
it continued. And as I said before, I do hold
out hope that somebody might be able to resurrect this,
just like what happened with the Batman franchise, and give

(45:53):
it a new coat of paint and new story and such.
So I would not be adverse to seeing that. But yes,
when it comes to this film is a six and
a half out of ten. So getting us to recommendations,
did you have anything you'd like to recommend to the
class this week?

Speaker 1 (46:08):
I'm gonna have some very random recommendations. And it's more
so because of who the cast is in the movie.
If you like our big Batty, go check him out.
And lawnmore Man, he played a big batty. There not
a big stretch. If you see this movie and you
see that movie, it's very similar. If you like our
lead heroin go check out Star Trek Voyager. She did

(46:31):
like ten seasons on there as Bolina Torres. She was
the klingon and then the lead henchmen. If anybody's that
old school, There was a Canadian show called Forever Night
kN Ight like Knight of Armor. He played a vampire

(46:52):
and that was a fun watch. So the supporting character
definitely subborting characters rather have a lot of good TV
series that you can check out to actually see their
acting chops. I mean, granted it's nineties and early two thousands,
but still it's acting.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Oh almost certainly is acting well. Then I guess I
will follow you up on that by saying, if you
appreciate Arnold Vosslou's work, you can check them out on
the movie that came out three years after this, which
was of course The Mummy from ninety nine, of course
directed by Stephen Summers, and of course featuring some great
actors I would say, between Brendan Frasier, Rachel Weiss and such.

(47:29):
So if you are in the mood for that, if
you've not seen it, I would certainly suggest it. It
is definitely far removed from the classic Boris Karloff, which
to me is my favorite Mummy movie, but I do
I did appreciate this and has that kind of adventure
flavor to it, very Indiana Jones like. So if that's
your speed, definitely check out The Mummy if you've yet

(47:50):
to do so. And of course we did get a
sequelce to that. Amongst these, I believe that we had
the Scorpion King and we also had the Clay Army,
so there's there's there's quite few things to be enjoyed
when it comes to that Mummy franchise, not the stuff
that happened later with when they try to do all
the all the universal classic horror characters, so definitely leave

(48:12):
those alone. The Woe with Tom Cruise not worth your
time if you ask me. So those are my recommendations.
And of course, dear listeners, if you want to share
your thoughts on the films we discuss here, you know
what to do. You can hit us up on our
email and that is Happiness and Darkness how at gmail
dot com. Once again, Happiness and Darkness how at gmail
dot com. Be sure to follow us on our social media.

(48:33):
If you're not doing that already, you can follow us
on Facebook re minds us Happiness and Darkness or on
x we can find us as Hi Darkness Pod. And now,
surely if you are listening to us on such platforms
as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora, you name it, be sure
to rate and review us, as that keeps that algorithm
stimulated and allows our little podcast to reach more like
minded is like yours. Tell your friends, tell your enemies,

(48:57):
we don't care. Spread the news. So a big thank
for those who have done so, and the future thank
you to those who will so. Keith, when you're not
here discussing such films as Die, Doc Man Die, where
can folks find you on the interwebs?

Speaker 1 (49:12):
Oh? Well, you know, I'm currently making lists of stuff
for us to review, so that that's a good part
of my life. And then when I'm not doing any
of that, you know you can find me on Oh jeez, Louise,
let's see our comics. They have the old archives. From there,
you have Star Trek, the undiscovered podcast episode of Gold Standards,
which I'm still changing my mind on that movie that

(49:33):
I've picked for you guys, because I'm trying to find
something even worse. Then you have real reactions as well,
So I've been a very busy person with not being
very busy. So and then when I'm not doing any
of that, you can obviously find me on our Facebook page,
drop a comment message, whatever the case may be. I'm
always around to talk about cartoons, com books, lions, tigers
and bears, all of that fun.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
Stuff, fantastic stuff and folks that you be sure to
check out all of Keith's wonderful appearances on the various
podcasts that were of course mentioned. When it comes to me,
you can find me at my day job hosting the
radio show Whiskey and Cigarettes, where we play the very
best and nothing but the best of country music for
you guys from Malabama to Baby Zimmerman. More information about

(50:14):
that you can vi is our website which is Whiskey
and Cigarettes show dot com. Podcast Wise, you can also
find myself, Rachel Friend and Zan Sprouse's as Keith kindly
mentioned on gold Standard the Oscars podcast, where we have
reviewed all the Best Picture winning movies in chronological order.
Now as we wait for the ninety eighth Best Picture
to review itself, we are reviewing movies that we have picked,

(50:36):
and we also have new and returning guest co hosts
like Keith bring their favorite movies to the gold Standard theater.
Recently reviewed the movie that I selected, which was Spice World,
of course, the Year Now, and our cult classic film
Well of Course, All about the Spice Girls. Coming up next,
we'll be reviewing the movie that Zan has picked and

(50:56):
that will be Fatso, which I have never seen and
I'm definitely looking forward to checking out. And last, but
say not least, and myself and Charles Skaggs can be
found on the fandom Zone podcast where we're currently reviewing
the second season of Peacemaker. We only have two episodes
to go, and man is it a heck of a
season And speaking things to come on this show. Next time,

(51:19):
we'll be going back to the DC universe, the animated
DC University in particular, and we'll be taking on the
two thousand and five Michael Grugan film The Batman Versus Dracula.
It's a nice way to start off Spooky month. So
a Keith, anything you'd like to add on our next
movie or anything else before we sign off.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
I'm looking forward to this one. I actually own this movie.
I bought it way the hell back when when it
came out I am a, as you know, a bit
of a Batman nerd, and this is probably my third
favorite series outside of the animated series and Batman Beyond,
so I can't wait for this one.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
I definitely can't wait for it too, A big fan
of the Batman TV show myself, so of course your listeners.
Thank you so much for listener show and supporting us.
We will see you next time with the Batman Versus Dracula.
Until then, thank you so much for the privilege of
your time. Stay super Shout

Speaker 1 (53:15):
The Beg.