INTERCESSOR

Genres can blur together to explore cinematic possibilities, so it seems only natural that rock and roll and the horror film would be thrown together with some regularity these days. Films such as Brian De Palma's PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE might stand as more reputable 1970s precedent, but nowadays such combinations seem to be dragging film into the gutter, a fault of which the hulking biceps of Canadian strongman John Mikl Thor cannot even redeem!

Since defeating the forces of evil 20 years ago, John Triton (John Mikl Thor) lives the life of a drifter. Wandering aimlessly, he is invoked by budding comic book artist, the sickly Harry, to intervene of the diabolical plots of the feuding Mephisto and Zompira, the super powered heralds of whom are attempting to destroy the only two innocent people in the world: Harry's only friend Julie, and a little girl called Laura.

Covering similar ground to the animated DOMINATOR, this live-action film features a thrown together mythology of supernatural creatures. Ridiculous entities such as Zompira, Lord of the Undead, and Mephisto, who rules hell, and their many minions, seem to have been invented with casual abandon. As such, the chaotic approach of the film - with a number of stories running parallel - make these arbitrary villains quite hard to distinguish from one another. Herein lies a huge flaw in this amateurish fluff: plot strands that are initiated are then left dormant for long stages, and the characters of Triton and Harry disappear significant lengths of time, despite being our protagonists. Although Triton and Harry can be seen as interchangeable, since the latter conjures the former with his 'immense spirit', INTERCESSOR: ANOTHER ROCK 'N ROLL NIGHTMARE is an outright muddle.

Whilst the film doesn't 'stop' its narrative for the songs, INTERCESSOR delves into musical territory by allowing its rock music to asphyxiate all and sundry like an airtight carrier bag. Dialogue is often indecipherable, and whenever Triton battles a 'super-powered' creature, the tunes blurt out. As the title character, Thor seems to play a composite of the muscle-bound Marvel characters Thor (he can shoot thunder at his opponents) and Hercules (shorn of his immortality and ejected from the land of the gods that he feels he belongs with). Thor's battle strategies are pretty basic: he either shoots them with thunderbolts or clobbers villains after wrapping them in his cloak to make them disappear. The fight sequences are clumsily coordinated, most notably when the hero is 'grabbed' by a tree: to achieve this effect, Thor shamelessly clinches a branch and starts throwing himself around!

Playing Triton / THE INTERCESSOR, Thor is pretty much blank, and seems more concerned with showing off his biceps. Sharon McDonald does a decent enough rendition of someone being nibbled on by Mephisto's creatures, as the kindly Julie, but the seemingly endless array of baddies are badly-dressed, posy show-offs who emit and endless stream of flowery dialogue. As Harry, Brad Pope sports a remarkably strange acting rhythm. With a tendency to pull his face before speaking, he appears oddly out of synch with the action, and is too whiny a character for us to tolerate in the film's early stages. If that wasn't enough, the murky video photography and non-acting give viewers major doubts that what they are watching deserves the lofty status of actually being called a 'film.'

Review by Matthew Sanderson