Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four

• Director Oley Sassone
• Not released officially but pirated copies have circulated since May 31, 1994. (YouTube mostly now)
• Based on Fantastic Four by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

When exposed to strange cosmic rays, four brave explorers are gifted with strange powers.

Despite never getting released, The Fantastic Four has been available in one form or another for decades mostly on physical media and now multiple versions on YouTube. I swear though that I saw it for rental at a local video store as a child. Anywho…

My first issue is the look of The Fantastic Four ‘94. This has all the high-end quality production values of a cheap made-for-TV movie of the time. Seriously. It looks like a step down from an Incredible Hulk TV movie which while not great did look good. This is certainly not of theatrical quality. But then again this is produced by Roger Corman.

That is in contrast to the suit used for The Thing/Ben Grimm (Michael Bailey Smith). It is amazing and stands head and shoulders above just about anything else presented in this movie. Then again it was built by the same people behind the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. There was nobody better to do the job then. And an honorable mention goes to the costume used for Dr. Doom (Joseph Culp). It is comics accurate and looks good on the screen.

Costuming is always important in a superhero movie. They need to look good. Not necessarily expensive but good. I’ll be the first to admit that not everything can be comics accurate. More often than not you can get close but not on the money. The Fantastic Four costumes, the old blue and white with the four on them, are little more than spandex morph suits. That they followed the design of the comics is not the issue. That they look like bad Halloween costumes is.

The Fantastic Four ‘94 is a lower than low budget at points. The shots are tight. And the effects are questionable-even for a Roger Corman film. I’m not talking for something from today, but rather for something released (or that would be released) at the time. This one would be unacceptable for even Charles Band.  And honestly I think he could’ve done a better job but that’s a discussion for another time.

In tone the narrative waffles between a superhero film of the time and the Batman ‘66 TV series. It goes from serious to goofy in a heartbeat. They go from building up the threat or general danger to a joke that makes it feel like nothing is really that bad. And it is done with a such a rapid pace that nothing gets to build.

This is certainly an evenly paced film, but that pace is a casual walk and never gets to even a mild jog. And this is a superhero movie! There should be levels of excitement here, but for some reason it’s only ever just gets to okay. The Hulk films of the time at least had excitement and at least generated level of interest that invested you in the story and this just never gets there.

Much of the narrative seems to rely on knowledge of the source material rather than actually crafting a story. For example, in the comics one of Ben’s love interests is a blind woman named Alicia Masters (Kat Green) since he has what amounts to confidence issues over what he looks like. Here they fall instantly in love after their first meet cute and it’s portrayed as a genuine love, but exactly how do they even fall in love? Meet cutes are the start and you generally get an idea of the connection but not here.

Besides Doom, the other villain of the story is called The Jeweler (Ian Trigger) who is an original creation for the film and comes off like the Mole Man. Why they did not use him I do not know. Too much in licensing? He takes one look at Alicia and is instantly smitten and spends his part of the padding, I mean story, trying to get with her in a rapey way. That was very Batman ’66.

I give David and Eric Wurst kudos on the music they made for this movie. The opening music as well as general soundtrack is pretty good. It sounds beautiful and it evokes feeling. I’m surprised at how well it’s done. It is reminiscent at points of James Horner and his better works.

In the story there is a passing comet called Colossus that has some weird properties that Doom wants to control but that feels like a bit of a side quest rather than the main story. The main story? Bits of revenge on the part of Doom and just random weirdness. There is no focus on much of anything.

Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four is pretty much what you would expect from a Roger Corman produced film. It’s a curiosity worth checking out and you can check it out for free on YouTube. A few people have uploaded complete versions of this. But if you’re looking for something to thoroughly enjoy then this isn’t it.