As a fan of writer/director Steven Kostanski’s last three movies, PSYCHO GOREMAN, FRANKIE FREAKO and DEATHSTALKER, I decided it was time to check out one of his older works. MANBORG is his first feature, released in 2011. He had already done several shorts (best title: Lazer Ghosts 2: Return to Laser Cove) while working in the makeup departments of larger productions including CAPOTE and TAMARA.

I would say MANBORG is a tongue-in-cheek movie played with a slightly straighter face than the other three Kostanskis I’ve seen, or at least with fewer straight up jokes. So it’s maybe his purest example of what I think of as a movie in quotes – a feature film that plays more like it’s saying “wouldn’t it be funny if there was a movie like this?” than like it actually is that movie. To enjoy it is to play along and pretend that it is. (And I did enjoy it.)

I generally prefer movies to “movies,” but I don’t mean the description as an insult here. Especially as the first feature for Kostanski and his crew, Astron-6, it’s fun to see this collection of free-based video store memories, the sorts of things he definitely thought were awesome when he was a kid and now he puts them out there knowing they’re silly but also still awesome. So there’s an apocalyptic war against demons, a cyberpunk dystopian megalopolis, a band of heroes who seem plucked out of a fighting video game (sometimes even making video game sound effects when they attack). There’s basically no hook to the title character, the premise is just that he’s a dead soldier brought back to life as a cyborg, but the fact that this is a very homemade movie created by a group of friends means that the actor, Matthew Kennedy (writer/director of FATHER’S DAY and THE EDITOR, and later the voice of Frankie Freako) isn’t some square-jawed action hero, he just seems like some dude. Some dude with a laser eye, machine gun hand and rocket-launching elbow. So there’s some novelty there.

The film is set after “the HELL Wars, when mankind fought the armies of HELL and HELL won” under the leadership of a vampire called Count Draculon (Adam Brooks). Our hero is a rebel soldier killed on the battlefield, his body dragged away and refurbished in a badass opening credits montage that shows us yep, Kostanski knows how to get the cinematic blood pumping. I bet he looked at the influential EVIL DEAD 2 suiting up montage, maybe the A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET glove construction, but also he’s got a few stop motion shots and he’s pushing in to beautiful retro computer graphics and TERMINATOR-esque fonts.

Manborg gains consciousness in Meganet City, where recordings warn that “all renegades will be terminated.” He runs into #1 Man (Ludwig Lee, also fight choreographer), a shirtless martial arts warrior who seems in the tradition of Mortal Kombat’s Liu Kang or Street Fighter’s Ryu. In fact, Lee’s voice is dubbed by Kyle Hebert, an anime voice actor who did Ryu’s voice in half a dozen games. #1 and Manborg get into an alley fight with the future equivalent of cops, who have Cenobite type faces and ride hoverboards. The cops win and sentence them to gladiatorial combat in the TerrorOpticon alongside fellow renegades Justice (Conor Sweeney, the nerd who summoned Frankie Freako in FRANKIE FREAKO) and his sister Mina (Meredith Sweeney, voice of Dottie Dunko). Justice has a Boz cut, fingerless gloves and sleeveless jean jacket, and he fulfills the familiar b-movie (and or GI Joe) archetype of the lovably outrageous Australian wildman. Mina would also fit into Street Fighter with her blue hair, red war paint, leather pants and cool blue jacket. But maybe she’s more of an anime character, since the backgrounds tend to switch to abstract colors when she leaps into action in their battle against the evil forces of Draculon.

There’s a sort of collage look to some of these complex shots compositing layers of live actors, 2D backdrops and digital explosions and things, or even sometimes adorably crude stop motion characters. They made an unusual choice to put some sort of skipped frames effect on much of it; I imagine it’s to tamp down the glossiness of digital video, but I think it also heightens the artificiality in an interesting way. It’s hard to describe but it feels kinda like muddy b-movie night scenes on VHS have been Brundleflyed with CD-ROM games to create a new (but somehow familiar) aesthetic. A dark city lit by neon, fire, glitchy holograms and flashy motion graphics on scanlined TV screens of all shapes and sizes.

The later Kostanskis feel more like “real movies” in terms of production value, as low as their budgets may be. This is more in the tradition of backyard filmmaking, where you accept that it all looks fake and are extremely impressed by the amount of effort and detail put into it. No, it doesn’t look like anybody is actually in a futuristic city, but it’s so full of cool designs and complicated shots and a STAR-WARS-like attention to random characters who only exist to be seen in a shot or two. It’s some form of magic spell for filmmakers with no money to spend the time to create a beautiful helmet, monster mask or stop motion robot just to be standing over to the side in one shot. It must have hundreds of visual effects, including digital backgrounds, explosions and things, 3D CG buildings and vehicles, and yet it also has several characters with full latex makeups and full body suits. They fill the stands of a non-existent arena, Manborg fights a huge stop motion beast, there’s a high speed hoverbike chase. In Hollywood that’s nothing but in something like this you keep wondering how the fuck they did all that. It must’ve taken for god damn ever.

I waited until afterwards to read that yes, it was shot mostly in Kostanski’s parents’ garage over about a year, with a budget of approximately $1,000 Canadian, with parts of the costumes built out of junk found dumpster diving. This is the future of desktop computer filmmaking once promised by SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, combined with analog era DIY tinkering like THE WIZARD OF SPEED AND TIME, EQUINOX, BAD TASTE, etc.

I mentioned that there are actual jokes in this. One is the character of The Baron (Jeremy Gillespie, also the co-writer, additional visual effects and additional music). He’s Draculon’s main subordinate, he has a Gestapo-like uniform, a scarred demon face, no lips, and goggles where his eyes were before they were poked out. But whenever he’s around Mina he gets bashful and tries to make awkward small talk. “So, do you like hover bikes, or…” Funny stuff.

Another one is at the end, Manborg has heroically sacrificed his heart serum to save Mina, and as he’s dying he’s shown a hologram message that says, “Hey bro. It’s me, your brother. Remember I died at the beginning? I just wanted to say you did great up there.” And then, “There’s no heaven.” It definitely made me laugh, but it’s the lead-in to an ending where all the monsters suddenly come back to life and our three surviving heroes give each other a little smirk and nod, get into fighting stances and run toward the camera, #1 Man punching toward it, the MANBORG title exploding out of his fist as they fly into battle in our imaginations. There’s no joke there except “Us dorks are gonna do a cool ending like MORTAL KOMBAT.” And I love that.

It’s a tricky tone that Kostanski continues to experiment with to this day. I think PSYCHO GOREMAN and FRANKIE FREAKO succeed by being full-on for laughs, while DEATHSTALKER comes closer to pulling off the almost-kinda-serious-for-the-most-part-but-also-there’s-comedy thing started here. I enjoy this early incarnation of it, but I do think the fact that it doesn’t feel completely sincere does prevent me from fully investing in it. Growing to “like” these “characters” is fun, but isn’t always enough to keep my heart in it.

But it’s a very impressive debut, and its promise is being fulfilled, so it was interesting to look at now.