 |
| All Images Courtesy: Unearthed Classics/New Line |
What a time to be alive: one of the most memorably odd creature features of the 1990s, a cult favorite of the VHS era which has always struggled to get a decent disc release, has just gotten a jaw-droppingly fancy UHD/blu special edition from Unearthed Classics. Up until now the only way to see 1991’s The Guyver in its uncut, maximally-insane glory was either on an old VHS or laserdisc, or by importing a very-okay German blu-ray which had the unrated bits spliced in from an upscaled tape master. It hasn’t seen official US distribution since a long-ago DVD which used the toned-down theatrical cut (falsely advertised as the director’s cut on the famously misleading cover), and even the 2016 Arrow Video UK special edition likewise used the cut version, as they apologetically stated that they were at the mercy of whatever master New Line was willing to give them. Finally, Unearthed has actually done what we had hoped Arrow Video was going to do eight years ago: they have given us the definitive home video special edition of The Guyver, with an absolutely stacked roster of special features, and the fully uncut, actual director’s cut of the film in 4K from the original negative.
The Guyver is a childhood favorite of mine, as it is for many people who grew up in the early-90s and developed at a young age a taste for creature features, practical effects, and cult cinema, and I am beyond thrilled to at last have the type of special edition which I had long hoped for, but which I was skeptical the film would ever get. It’s an odd, somewhat misbegotten movie: a tonally messy film with one foot in R-rated body-horror and one foot in for-the-kids Ninja Turtles ripoff territory, initially ending up as a very envelope-pushing PG-13 (the VHS and laserdisc used the unrated cut seemingly by accident, and it was never corrected) that doesn’t seem entirely sure what target audience it was made for. But that strange hodgepodge of tones and possible audiences is a huge part of why its cult following loves it – to say nothing of the wall-to-wall fantastic creature effects by Screaming Mad George, Steve Wang, and company. It is the kind of oddity that naturally would have struggled with distribution, but it is also exactly the kind of oddity that really deserves a special edition like this to unpack the behind-the-scenes stories of how it came to be. So with no further ado, let’s dive in to Unearthed Classic’s special edition of The Guyver.
THE FILM:
The early 90s were a strange wild-west era when it came to superhero movies. The genre was nowhere close to being the money-making powerhouse that it is today, and far from being the stuff of mega-budget blockbusters, comic-book movies had largely been seen as niche items for the B-movie market. That is, at least until the massive success of Tim Burton's Batman, which started to change the game. Batman showed studios not only that superhero movies could be successful, but also that they weren't just kids' stuff: Burton's moody, gothic vision proved that there was an appetite for darker and more adult-oriented superhero-style fare. This revelation led to a small but distinctive wave of early-'90s comic book movies for older audiences, like The Crow and Darkman, which took that dark style even further, into R-rated territory.
It was at this time that special effects artist and aspiring director Screaming Mad George (who did effects for A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Arena, Bride of Re-Animator, and Society) and producer Brian Yuzna (Re-Animator, Society, The Return of the Living Dead 3) were hired to helm a live-action adaptation of Yoshiki Takaya's cult-favorite manga and anime Bio-Booster Armour Guyver. It seemed to them like the perfect chance to run with the manga’s dark body-horror tone and elaborate menagerie of monsters, and make their take on a superhero movie for the effects-heavy cult cinema crowd. The film was to be based around the brilliant effects work of Screaming Mad George and his protégé and co-director Steve Wang, who also brought to the film his experience as a martial arts action director. And through Yuzna’s connections they assembled an impressive ensemble of cult horror and sci-fi actors including Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes), David Gale (Re-Animator), Linnea Quigley (The Return of the Living Dead), Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator also), and Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill. All the pieces looked like they were falling into place for an awesome R-rated monster battle... but then something happened. Specifically, 1990's live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie happened, and the film’s financial backers decreed that The Guyver needed to shift gears mid-pre-production, and retrofit itself into a kid-friendly action movie riding the coattails of TMNT; a decision that (according to the commentary on this disc) both directors were strongly against, but were told it was non-negotiable.
So they injected goofy slapstick humor, and moved away from the horror to focus on TMNT or Power Rangers-style martial-arts action, in an attempt to make it a hit with (older) kids. Yet they kept some of the gore, and the cast of actors known for R-rated cult films, leaving no doubt as to the original intention of what the movie was supposed to be. The result is a weirdly dissonant exercise in trying to have your cake and eat it too; a film which isn't sure if it wants to be the next Ninja Turtles or the next Re-Animator. The moderator of the disc’s director commentary cheekily refers to it as “Baby’s First Re-Animator,” and that pretty much sums it up. It makes the wildly misjudged decision to try and be both, and in doing so lands itself in an awkward netherworld between target audiences. The film never gels into a remotely cohesive tone... but ultimately, that weird dissonance is one of its most endearing and fun qualities. The Guyver may not exactly work, but it is a very fun and entertaining movie in its own bizarre way; it certainly is unique in its subgenre, for good and for bad.
The Guyver tells the story of a college student who accidentally finds and activates a mysterious living suit of alien armor, which throws him into the middle of an underground conflict between humanity and a shadow organization called the Chronos Corporation, which seeks to claim the planet for a race of shape-shifting monsters called Zoanoids. The story began in the mid-1980s as a manga series, and was adapted shortly thereafter into a two-season, twelve-episode anime (a rebooted anime would follow in the 2000s). In both mediums, the series was excellent: outwardly it may appear to work with plenty of well-worn anime tropes (high school kids, mecha armor, monster battles, etc), but the story is so well-written, with such a unique and well-developed mythology, that it feels totally fresh. I think it's safe to say that The Guyver was among the better anime or manga series of the late-1980s, thanks especially to that deep and fascinating mythos behind Chronos, their shape-changing Zoanoids, and the Guyver units.
It's no surprise that it became a cult favorite here in the U.S. during the early days of the proliferation of anime in this country, and it is equally little surprise that it was licensed for an American movie to capitalize on that popularity. Unfortunately it is just as unsurprising that Brian Yuzna, Screaming Mad George, and Steve Wang struggled to do justice to what made the original series so beloved, especially once the order to make it a kid-friendly TMNT clone was foisted upon them. The story is all still here, and when it delves briefly into the anime's mythology you can clearly see the more serious, probably better movie that this could have been, but the bizarre tonal inconsistencies of the radically shifted production undercut these stronger elements. The silly and serious sides of the script feel like two different movies, and the shifts between these modes can be extremely jarring. Even if you didn’t know the production’s backstory, it feels very obvious that this was originally intended to be a much darker and less comical film, and had its humor forcibly injected into it during some late-in-the-game rewrites.
But with all of that said, this patchwork style gives it an unexpectedly fun, chaotic camp energy which is ultimately a feature and not a bug: The Guyver has a frenzied, overcaffeinated, off-the-wall style where you never know quite what the movie will do next. There could be a brutal, crazy fight between its extremely well-designed monsters, ending with a boundary-pushing-for-PG-13 gore gag, or one of those monsters could break into a cheesy rap. That unpredictability is a whole lot of fun – at least, if you’re watching it it with a sense of camp humor and a certain amount of irony. Serious fans of the manga and anime were understandably salty about all of this when it came out, but over the years fans have come to love the movie for these aspects, not in spite of them. This is a true guilty-pleasure movie: one that definitely isn't objectively good, but is awesome all the same, in its own wacky way. It is camp of the most purely early-'90s variety, and in that regard it has only gotten more entertaining as its distinct early-'90s-ness has become more and more obvious with time.
And of course, there are major things that the film genuinely and unironically does really well. It is quite well-shot, with stylized blue lighting that evokes the story's comic-book and anime roots. It also boasts a very good musical score, with a great, very memorable main theme that has gotten stuck my head over the years hundreds of times. In the disc extras, composer Matthew Moore says the brief he was given was to make a theme that had aspects of both the Star Wars score and the industrial sounds of Skinny Puppy, and I would say he nailed it. But by far the strongest aspect of the film is Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang's creature effects work. The rubber suits, miniatures, and the animatronics used to bring their very expressive faces to life are truly great. This is especially true of the Guyver himself, Michael Berryman's villainous Lisker, and the seriously awesome third-act big bad the Zoalord, all of whom could give the creatures from most other genre flicks of the early-'90s a serious run for their money. The film also boasts some first-rate transformation sequences every bit as well-done as those from the best werewolf movies. The opening sequence and the second Guyver activation sequence are both among the coolest and most effective transformations I’ve ever seen. On the strength of these things alone The Guyver is a must-see for fans of this style of practical effects. Granted, some of the minor monsters who pop up briefly are pretty cheesy, but the star creatures easily carry the show.
The cast is likewise a mixed bag. As our out-of-his-depth college kid turned superhero, Jack Armstrong (Student Bodies) is good and appropriately handsome and flustered, though occasionally wooden. Vivian Wu (The Last Emperor, The Pillow Book), on the other hand, is extremely wooden as his girlfriend Mizuki (the one character from the comics and anime who wasn't whitewashed for this adaptation), and her weak performance does nothing to improve a character who is already written as little more than a damsel-in-distress stereotype. Mark Hamill and David Gale are unsurprisingly the MVPs of the cast: they both know exactly what kind of movie they are in, they perfectly understand the level of camp and scenery-chewing that the odd tone requires, and you can tell that they both have an absolute blast with it, while being fully committed. Hamill does his best Peter Falk as Columbo impression as a droll and world-weary, cigarette-chomping CIA agent, and Gale devours every scene as a knowingly satirical spin on his memorable villain performance in Re-Animator. Injecting some more outright comedy into the film are two postmodern cameos by '80s cult-horror icons Jeffrey Combs and Linnea Quigley, both of whom clearly have a good time spoofing their star images. Michael Berryman is also as memorable as ever as the second-in-command heavy to David Gale’s big-bad. However, Jimmy Walker of Good Times fame is absolutely awful as a rapping monster whose characterization feels uncomfortably like a racist stereotype of Jar Jar Binks or Transformers 2 racist-robot proportions. I would love to know what Walker thinks of this film, and if he thinks the writing and direction of his character was racist, cuz… yeah, it’s very uncomfortable and deeply cringy, not to mention just unfunny. His character is definitely the film’s most wildly misguided element, of the variety that makes you ask, “why didn’t someone stop this?”
The Guyver is definitely one of those films where mileage will vary: depending on your enjoyment of both campy 90s B-movie cheese and legitimately awesome practical creature effects, you will either have an absolute blast with it, or its brand of silliness will really test your patience. Personally I love this movie, and I find its odd tonal swings to be part of the charm, but nostalgia is definitely a factor. The practical effects are fantastic, however, and in that aspect the film is an absolute success, even if it is a somewhat misbegotten production in other ways. This film became a big enough cult hit on cable and home video that New Line ordered a straight-to-video sequel, once again directed by Steve Wang, and in some ways it is even better: a darker and more serious, more faithful adaptation of the source material, which ditched the TMNT-knockoff aspirations and fully embraced its R-rating. In many ways, Guyver 2: Dark Hero is the film that fans of the manga and anime had wanted The Guyver to be in the first place, and it is one that I highly recommend. But even with its obvious flaws and unevenness – honestly, because of its flaws and unevenness, in a lot of ways – The Guyver is an absolute blast, and I am so glad it has gotten this kind of fantastic special edition.
THE UNEARTHED CLASSICS 4K LIMITED EDITION:
Eight years ago when Arrow Video announced a limited edition UK blu-ray of The
Guyver, I remember being extremely excited, and then bitterly disappointed
when it so totally failed to live up to fans’ hopes. Not only did Arrow’s 2016
disc have very little in the way of extras – an interview with Brian Yuzna, but
nothing else – it had what any fan would tell you is the wrong version of the
film. When New Line first released The Guyver, the MPAA demanded significant
cuts to the film’s gore to secure a PG-13 rating. However, a gorier unrated
version was prepared for late-night cable, where the film thrived. When the
movie was released on VHS and laserdisc, New Line used the unrated cable
version, apparently by mistake, while still printing the PG-13 rating on the
box. This meant that all of us who grew up with the film on VHS unknowingly grew up with the unrated version
(no wonder so many of us 90s kids found it so cool and alluring – it had some
pretty edgy moments for an alleged PG-13). However, Arrow’s disc used an off-the-shelf
HD master provided to them by New Line, and it was the original PG-13
theatrical cut, missing several key moments of gore effects that those of us
who grew up with the film on VHS vividly remembered.
Now at last, Unearthed Classics has done right by The Guyver, securing the rights to make a pristine new 4k restoration of the fully uncut version of the film. Even before we get to the extras, this is a stellar release based on the transfer alone. The movie looks beautiful – it honestly is surreal to see a relatively low-budget VHS-era mainstay, which I am most used to seeing in early-90s tape quality, look this great. The transfer is rich and filmic, with a healthy grain structure, and extremely fine detail. The colors and contrast really pop, in both the UHD and blu-ray presentations, with the film’s deep shadows and stylized comic-book colors looking fantastic. The 4k presentation really shows off how visually polished the film is, for its budget, between the first-rate creature effects and some very strong production design, especially in the Chronos lab. This transfer is, to my eyes, pretty much perfect, and a truly massive upgrade over the previous versions that exist. And of course, having all of the unrated footage likewise transferred in 4k from the negative, and not spliced in from a lower-quality source as on the older German blu, is amazing.
The extras that Unearthed Classics has assembled, all of which are brand-new, are likewise outstanding: this disc is absolutely stacked. For starters, there are TWO commentaries with the film, the first by co-directors Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang, moderated by Dom O’Brien, the author of a book about the production of the two Guyver movies, and the second by two members of the film’s effects and stunt crew, giving their insights from inside the monster suits and fights. Both commentaries are excellent: very conversational and very fun, while also full of cool information and stories about the production. You can tell that both sets of guys are real-life friends, and that they all genuinely had a blast making this movie, and have a lot of fondness for it, even as they are all very honest about its flaws and the ways in which the production was messy. Both tracks contain quite a bit of laughter right from the start, which is a very good sign. The commentary by the two directors is unsurprisingly the one with the most specific insight and history about the production, and the decisions made that led to the film being the way it is (they literally start the track by saying that the order came from on-high that the movie needed to turn itself into a kid-friendly and comedic TMNT knockoff, that it was a non-negotiable point, and that both of them were vehemently opposed to the idea, although they then tried to fully commit and make the best of it), but both tracks are a blast, and I would highly recommend listening to them.
Next, the disc features very long and in-depth interviews with Screaming Mad George and Brian Yuzna. Much like the commentaries, these are both loaded with fascinating info, and very fun chats with the two filmmakers. I was concerned that the Screaming Mad George interview might overlap too much with his commentary, but it actually covers very different topics: rather than focusing on The Guyver specifically, it is a wide-ranging chat covering his entire career, and of course this film as part of that larger story. It will absolutely give a greater appreciation for him as a very unique artist. Rounding out the extras are some never-before-released behind-the-scenes videos: tests of the Guyver and Lisker suits, a gag reel, and an outtake compilation, all with filmmaker commentaries, plus a gallery of concept art from the film.
.jpg)
The Guyver comes from Unearthed Classics in a couple different forms: there is a standard blu-ray, which has all of the above extras. Then there is also the limited edition UHD/blu-ray set, which has a couple more physical extras. The limited set features a booklet with an appreciation of the film by Dom O’Brien and a reflection on the composition of the film’s score by Matthew Morse. Then it also features a CD of Morse’s full score to the film – a very cool addition, since the score is excellent. Both packages are fantastic, but personally I think the inclusion of the soundtrack definitely makes the limited set worth it.
Fans of The Guyver will be absolutely thrilled with this set. Not only do we have the film fully uncut in an absolutely stunning restoration, but we have that restoration packaged in a truly superlative special edition loaded with really good extras. It honestly feels pretty surreal to see an oddball movie like The Guyver getting a boutique package this nice. If you are a fan of the film, buy this immediately. Now we just need an equally fancy package for Guyver 2: Dark Hero!
- Christopher S. Jordan
Share this review!