I don’t consider myself to be much of a Clive Barker fan, though his work does have some distinctive elements which lend themselves to interesting screen adaptations. Take Nightbreed, for example, which had a dangerous tribe of monsters living outside of society, and these were the heroes. That isn’t too dissimilar to 1985’s Underworld, in which the good guys are users who incurred weird facial deformities from their drug of choice, and which are first seen abducting a prostitute.
I’ll admit what drew my interest to this film is because it has been so thoroughly disowned by Barker. Director George Pavlou became acquainted with the writer before even his first novel was published. Pavlou was intrigued by his writings, but the resulting script Barker submitted (and this was his first time writing a script) was apparently too weird for the producers. Imagine that.
As a result of drastic alterations, the resulting film does not bear as many hallmarks of Barker’s work as one might expect. Even so, this has more of his DNA than one might expect when taking into consideration how little the writer claims was retained.
The first thing we need to address: this isn’t horror, but more of a curious action-thriller hybrid with a touch of science fiction. The synthetic drug that caused its users to mutate was apparently created as an alternative to heroin, though just as addictive. A gangster trying to move into legitimate businesses (Steven Berkoff) was behind that drug trade, and is now trying to eliminate all remaining vestiges of that operation. And that means killing off the old users, who are rather an embarrassing legacy of his previous enterprise.
Berkoff’s character is named Motherskille, and other actors saying his name interchangeably change where the break in syllables occurs, alternating between “Mother’s kill” and “Mother skill”. I didn’t recognize him at first, and my notes have him labelled as “generic, store-brand Rutger Hauer”. Then there’s his similarly peculiarly named assistants. Brian Croucher is Darling, the gun-happy one. The other is named Flue (Art Malik), and I would have accused him of cribbing Richard E. Grant’s look in Withnail & I, except that movie arrived two years after this one.
Rounding out the goofy names is Denholm Elliott as Dr. Savary, and it sounds like all the other characters are saying “Dr. Savory”. I think it’s only fair to demand there also be a Dr. Sweet to round out a diabolical “Doctors of Snacking”, but nothing doing. Elliott gives it his all in a curiously ill-defined role as the doctor who manufactures the drug, which looks like milk packaged in insulin vials.
One thing I never quite grasped about this element of the plot is the drug is supposed to manifest the dreams of its users. Now that could have had interesting possibilities, and I bet that was a large part of Barker’s script. All we see in this movie of those manifestations are the deformities inflicted upon the users. I wonder whether the drug simply backfired or if these people had some seriously strange dreams.
Our hero is played by Larry Lamb, in a performance that felt rather half-hearted. He largely looks bewildered, and he seems to have a peculiar accent I couldn’t place that comes and goes. I know this is unfair, but something about his acting reminded me just a bit of Tommy Wiseau in The Room.
Lamb’s character is apparently a detective of some sort, which felt right for a Barker story. I assume the work of his I was reminded of is Lord of Illusion. Lamb has been hired by Berkoff to investigate the abduction of the high-priced call girl I mentioned earlier (Nicola Cowper).
I keep wanting to call the drug mutants “C.H.U.D.s” since they live underground. And yet, they aren’t cannibals. In fact, they are probably closer to being heroes than even our protagonist. The reason they kidnapped Cowper is because they are trying to discover why she is the only user who hasn’t developed deformities. If they can determine why she is different, they may be able to save themselves.
There is a lot here that doesn’t add up, though I found it all the more interesting for these quirks. There’s some business involving old, worn figurines of some sort, but I couldn’t figure out what role they play in the world of the film. Strongly colored lighting is used throughout, giving it the appearance of something with a much higher budget. It is no surprise the director admits on the commentary track the influence Suspiria had on him.
Underworld didn’t do much for the careers of Pavlou or Barker. What I find confusing is, given Barker’s disavowal of the resulting film, why they worked together the following year on Rawhead Rex. But, if there is anybody who did benefit from this film, it is the group Freur, who did the soundtrack. I doubt they were compensated well for this work here, but they did find success soon afterward when they changed their name to…wait for it…Underworld.
Dir: George Pavlou
Starring Larry Lamb, Nicola Cowper, Steven Berkoff, Denholm Elliott
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray