So in the mid-90s, Full Moon flirted with the superhero genre that was quickly becoming more popular. While Mandroid and Invisible were attempts at this kind of film, Doctor Mordrid was supposedly a Doctor Strange script that had to be re-purposed when Full Moon lost the license (yes, at one point Full Moon had the license for Doctor Strange.
First let me say that I now really won’t be able to accept Benadryl Cribbigematch as Stephen Strange because Jeffrey Combs is perfect, even now he’d be great. For the most part Doctor Mordrid does nothing to hide its Marvel origins (Band has said that the rumors of this being a Doctor Strange script are lies, but history has shown that Charles Band bends the truth) with Combs’ character dressing similar.
Doctor Mordrid is over one hundred years old and is on the Earth realm to protect it from dark magic users, one such is his equal and nemesis Cabal (Brian Thompson) an alchemist bent on unleashing Hell on Earth. Cabal escapes his supernatural prison and comes to Earth where he gathers the materials he needs and will steal the Philosopher’s Stone to complete his mission.
Doctor Mordrid is cheesy to no end and the character isn’t really interesting enough to be worth Jeffrey Combs’ time or talents. But it’s lovably goofy and I’m not going to argue with anything featuring Jeffrey Combs and Brian Thompson in the lead good guy/bad guy roles. There’s even some decent claymation in the film, most memorably where the two wizards duke it out using the skeletons of tyrannosaurus and a wooly mammoth.
If not for some gore and the house-standard random nudity, Doctor Mordrid would be a kids movie, but for some reason Band chose to chase that R. I postulate the theory that Full Moon didn’t go out of business due to the death of the video store, but because parents actually started paying attention to what movies their kids were watching.
It’s dumb, it’s goofy, watch it anyway.
Watch, Toss, Or Buy? Buy
If You Liked This, Watch: Darkman (1990), The Toxic Avenger (1984), Meteor Man (1993), Black Scorpion (1995), Condorman (1981), Mandroid (1993), Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight (1993), The Shadow (1994), The Rocketeer (1991), The Spirit (2008), The Green Hornet (2011), The Phantom (1996), Dick Tracy (1990), Masters of the Universe (1987), Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time (1991)