DOCTOR MORDRID – the film that almost was Doctor Strange

The story of Doctor Mordrid. 

Before Marvel became Marvel Studios and tightened its grip on nearly all its most important brands—thereby creating the most profitable film franchise in cinema history—the company was lost among all those potential cash-cow licenses like a child in the fog. Stan Lee, a frustrated artist after failures in Hollywood, began in the 1970s to sell off licenses wherever he could. Various studios and TV networks bought up those rights by the truckload and usually shelved them—because while they held potential, technical limitations and the still relatively minor role of comic books (compared to other media) left buyers unsure what to do with them.

The only somewhat unexpected success came from the TV adaptation of The Incredible Hulk, which was notably stripped of much of its comic book flair. Its strength lay primarily in the quasi-realistic world it portrayed and the character of Dr. David Banner, haunted by his demons (Why David instead of Bruce? Allegedly because one of the producers thought the name Bruce sounded too gay). Meanwhile, the TV series The Amazing Spider-Man turned out to be a flop, as were the low-budget TV movies about Captain America (who fought with a plastic, transparent shield), his 1990 theatrical film, and the 1978 pilot for Doctor Strange.

The case of the latter hero is rather amusing. Marvel’s master sorcerer, now a staple of movie screens, was actually on the verge of making a proper feature-length debut back in 1992. Full Moon Features, a studio specializing in cheerful B-grade schlock like the Subspecies or Puppet Master series, had picked up the Strange license for pennies and began shooting a film. Unfortunately, just before production began, it turned out the rights had expired. Rather than scrapping the project, the studio heads didn’t want to mess with the budget plans and pulled a clever trick: they filmed a Doctor Strange adaptation that stayed surprisingly faithful to the source material but simply changed all the names and costume designs. The cunning plan was to sell the film using imitation elements—close enough to be recognizable, but not blatant enough to land in court. And who could blame them? Stan Lee himself borrowed many elements for Strange from old Chandu the Magician radio dramas (which even got two films in the 1930s).

In Full Moon’s version, Doctor Mordrid (formerly Stephen Strange) is a mystical guardian of Earth’s dimension, sent by a powerful being called the Monitor (formerly the Ancient One) to stop the evil sorcerer Kabal (formerly Baron Mordo) from opening the gates of Hell (presumably once the Dark Dimension). Also appearing was Mordrid’s loyal sidekick Gunner (most likely a stand-in for Wong). The audience never saw the protagonist’s origin story—film Mordrid had been active for over a hundred years and lived secretly as the manager of an apartment building (with a residence “bigger on the inside,” closely resembling the comic’s Sanctum Sanctorum), allowing him to encounter the main female character. And, of course, he did what all good Doctors Strange do—used astral projection, shot magic from his hands, and looked great in loose blue robes.

In the end, this orphaned adaptation turned out to be a pretty solid B-movie; a charming relic suspended in the fantasy cinema iconography of the 1980s—with a simple and effective good-vs-evil structure, decent pacing, and fantastic stop-motion animation in the final battle between dinosaur skeletons (yes! You couldn’t make this more Ray Harryhausen-esque if you tried). The subplot involving an ageless magical warrior and his relationship with a policewoman also clearly echoes Highlander. When you steal, steal from the best.

But the film’s greatest treasure, without a doubt, is the absolutely magical Jeffrey Combs in the title role.

Combs is the embodiment of heartfelt commitment to 1980s low-budget cinema—his unmistakable face and distinctive style, slightly theatrical and exaggerated, captivate the viewer. The man has delivered tons of celluloid gold—Re-Animator, From Beyond, Cellar Dweller, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Frighteners. He’s an icon of Full Moon and the most recognizable face in H.P. Lovecraft adaptations (in fact, Doctor Mordrid nicely nods to Combs’s horror roots—his raven companion is named Edgar Allan). You can’t help but like him, as he pours energy into even the silliest scenes, and his Mordrid carries a lot of comic book Strange’s charm. And when he’s up against Brian Thompson—whose booming voice and square jaw (worthy of a Robert Z’Dar award) are familiar to every VHS fan (Cobra, Lionheart, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation)—things couldn’t go too wrong.

Of course, it’s far from brilliant. It’s still an extremely cheap production, where for much of the film the viewer’s main fear is that the set might collapse at any moment. But it’s rated R, as every good B-movie should be—and that comes with swearing, violence, and nudity (yes, there’s room for that), none of which you’ll find in a blockbuster that costs all the money in the world. Renowned critic Leonard Maltin probably put it best: Doctor Mordrid is simply “a small, satisfying movie” that makes full use of its limitations and, within the bounds of penny-budget fantasy, delivers surprisingly well.