Review: Transmutations, aka Underworld (1985)
By William Pattison
This time I got Clive Narker’s first attempt as a
screnwriter to release a feature film for distrobution…
Underworld (1985)
Anonymous
When high class hooker Nicole is kidnapped from her brothel,
Rich businessman Hugo Motherskille hires her ex love Roy Bain to find her.
Investigating the disappearance, he eventually finds traces that lead to Dr.
Savary, who has produced a strange white powder that's coveted by a race of
deformed human beings who live in the underworld in the sewers below the city.
This film predates Barker’s novel about an underground
community of freaks and monster and has been long considered a precursor to
Barker’s novel Cabal that was the source for his film Nightbreed.
U fortunately Barker has for years disowned this film as
well as RAwhead Rex because the production company made changes to both films
that Barker didn’t approve of.
Personally I really love this film. I love the style and a
just love feel and even the music.
The actress playing Nicole has a very unique and attractive
look to me. So unique that I naturally did a portrait of her that I ended up
selling for $1000 at a charity auction.
The quest for Roy Bain, the main character to find Nicole,
who is the love of his life, who also has the strange power of allowing people
to experience their deepest desires is the heart of the film though Nicole is
barely given ten minutes of screen time. The rest is Roy Bain going from the world of the sex
trade into a strange world of illegal experimentation, drugs, and human
mutation.
This film also has a hard edged English Goth and Punk feel
sprinkled into it. As well the music by the Welsh band Freur ebich really
stuck with me, especially the end theme, Remember me.
All and all this film is a unique experíence that for me
even with its flaws outshines even Nightbreed to me. I don’t know if you will
get the same impression, but it is more than with your time if you are
interested in Seeing Barker’s work pre-Hellraiser…
