The mass driver powered on and at any moment Walt Disney World, and, more importantly, Edwige, would be history. But as the Goose Lord and his gang roared in triumph, the mass driver violently shaked. Sparks flew from the coils and the power current tugged the piece of tungsten back toward the base. After a loud crack and a boom, the coils collapsed. From the wreckage came a cloud of fentanyl dust, flooding the crowd of jeering malcontents who now screamed in terror. Even the Goose Lord himself got washed over with the deadly drug and if I didn’t high tail it out of there, I’d have been next.

— To be continued. 

Tonight’s movie is 1997’s Spawn from director Mark A.Z. Dippé. I remember this being one of the more robust DVDs upon release with regards to presentation of this movie as well as special features. It even had an extensive interview with comic artist Todd McFarlane where he gave insights into Hollywood and the MPAA. He stated that you could film an entire movie in a cemetery at night. Your characters would be doing nothing but eating tea and crumpets and the MPAA would still give your movie an R rating. 

Spawn begins with a prelude about the battle between light and darkness raging eternally. Malebolgia, the Lord of Darkness who reigns over Hell, is recruiting an army of souls to march against the gates of Heaven and burn them down. All he needs is someone to lead his army, a man named Al Simmons (Michael Jai White). Simmons is a special CIA operative, who executes the bad guys for his boss, Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen), without question. Too bad Wynn has made a deal with a demon named Clown (John Leguizamo) to kill Simmons so he can be handed over to forces of Hell to lead their armies. Simmons is betrayed during a special op and set on fire, crying out for his wife, Wanda (Theresa Randle), as he falls to Hell. 

Simmons wakes up in a dark alley filled with vagrants and now has the appearance (as Gene Siskle once put it) of an alligator handbag. To make matters worse, he’s now poked and prodded by the obnoxious Clown who informs Simmons that it’s been five years and that his wife has now married his best friend, Terry (D. B. Sweeney). Oh, and Simmons made a deal with the devil to lead the armies of Hell against Heaven just for the chance to see Wanda again. When he shows up at Wanda and Terry’s house, they just see a burned up freak in a trench coat. And all the while Clown just keeps making fart jokes in an effort to piss off Simmons so his necroplasmic armor emerges turning him into Spawn.

If you want to watch Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert have a nasty argument, check out their review of Spawn. Roger Ebert said the visions of Hell he saw in this movie were comparable to a Hieronymus Bosch painting while Siskel couldn’t get over John Leguizamo’s Clown commenting on the skidmarks on his underpants.

As for me, I bought the Arrow Special Edition Blu-ray of this 90s classic. Arrow Video has been referred to as the Criterion of Shit. With the number of fart jokes present in this movie, I’d say they proudly earned that label.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, episode 549, episode 575, episode 596, episode 597, episode 598, episode 599, episode 642, episode 643, episode 644, episode 645, episode 670, episode 686, episode 687,  688, and 689) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.