Thale (2012)

This is a seriously underrated little film. 

I don't know how many people even came across it--it mostly played festivals, with a few (really) limited general releases thrown in. But it's more than worth the price-of-rental and 76 minutes it takes to watch it. And true to form, I'm gonna spoil all its secrets if you keep reading. I'm just saying, that's how I roll.

So the thing was shot in Norway, by a guy named Aleksander Nordaas, for a total cost of $10,000. (Cheap!) Not that you would know that as you watched it. I've seen (so) many five or ten million dollar films that came off so much worse than this one. 

Wait. I'm making it sound like the film is just okay but there are worse ones out there, which is not what I mean at all. What I mean is this is a good film, and there are a lot of people out there who've spent a hundred times more money making really bad films.

Of course, Nordaas directed, wrote, produced, edited, worked the camera, built the sets and acted as cinematographer, so that saved a lot of money right there. Plus, he shot most of it in his dad’s basement. But the point I'm belaboring making is you'd never guess all that if you hadn't looked it up before or after the fact.

So. On to the movie itself.

Right off the bat we meet Elvis (Erlend Nervold) and Leo (Jon Sigve Skard). Leo apparently runs a crime scene cleanup business and Elvis, his buddy, is tagging along to make a little extra cash (I'm guessing). We know this is not Elvis' usual line of work because he spends this entire first-scene-interspersed-with-opening-credits vomiting. A lot. In detail. So if onscreen vomiting really gets to you, it'd be a good scene to avert your eyes in. Not that anyone finds onscreen vomiting particularly enjoyable, but if you're especially bothered by it, eye averting is good here.

Elvis the Vomiter (L) and Leo the Crime Scene Cleaner (R)

Anyway, it's worth noting these guys are way out in the middle of nowhere, cleaning up this little mountain cabin where someone has apparently been murdered. No idea how crime scene stuff works in Norway, but they're zipping a guy up into a body bag and cleaning up all this blood and gore. Have cops even been there? Wouldn't a coroner have taken the body away before these guys ever showed up? No idea. But anyway that's what they're doing.

We get a POV flashback scene (lots of those in this movie) where someone we can't see but who we'll call Talking Man is walking through a snow covered forest and talking to someone else we can't see about how he wishes things had turned out differently, and what happens now depends on "them," and so forth. We pass by a cave entrance and Talking Man says something about "that's where I found you, nine years ago. I wish I'd left you there." And we get this quick flashback-within-a-flashback shot of a creepy-not-quite-human-baby, laying there all shrouded in cave darkness. Eek.

In case we had come upon this movie unaware it was a horror film, now we know.

Then we're back to present day and mostly no longer vomiting Elvis. And Leo, too. (I mean Leo is also there. He was never vomiting.) So everything's pretty much cleaned up by now, and Elvis (even though Leo says don't go messing around touching things) starts messing around and touching things. He finds a hidden basement entrance outside, around back of the cabin, and (even though Leo says don't go in there and start touching things) goes in there and starts touching things.

It's a creepy place, with big jars full of formaldehyde-y body parts and stuff, and they (Leo keeps saying stay out but he's as curious as the next guy) find a room with a big tub full of viscous white fluid and a workbench. On the workbench is an old style cassette tape recorder and a bunch of tapes. Elvis can't help but put one in and give it a listen.

I'm not touching, I'm listening....

So the tapes are all of Talking Man (who we never meet and whose body I assume was being zipped up in that bag we saw earlier) telling his story. Elvis is listening away while Leo pokes around in some other room, when all of a sudden a naked woman (who we'll find out later is Thale (Silje Reinamo), the movie's titular character) comes busting out of that fluid-filled bathtub, scaring poor Elvis half to death.

Boo!

Gah!

She's as freaked out as Elvis is and grabs him in a choke hold that he's not gonna live through if she keeps at it, but Leo rushes in and talks her down. She seems to understand Norwegian but apparently doesn't speak, herself. Well, Leo's all like "what are we gonna do now, this is an active crime scene, I gotta go call my boss" and Elvis is like "hey, grab those rolls outta the car while you're at it, this girl looks hungry." So Leo hikes down to the car and that's where we see our first monster, lurkishly skittering (or skitterishly lurking, definitely both happening) across the road as Leo's getting the bad news that his boss is gonna be hours and hours before getting there.

Yikes!

Great. Stuck up in the mountains with monsters that you don't even know are there. This is bad. So. Back at the cabin, Thale (pronounced like you're Canadian and someone says "wow that guy is at least seven foot six" and you reply "tall, eh"?) is pounding down this bag of rolls Leo brought back from the car and the guys are realizing she's been here on her own for awhile, living off a bunch of canned food and bottled water that's pretty much gone at this point. So it's a good thing they came along when they did, right?

Well, we've gotten a little vague backstory on Thale from these tapes Elvis is listening to, but we still don't really know who or what she is and why she's hiding out in this cabin. At one point, Talking Man mentions on one of his tapes that he's surprised at how human-esque Thale is, and it must be her species' ability to adapt to their surroundings at work. Hmm. Anyway, it sounds like she and Talking Man were on the run, hiding from somebody, but we're not sure who. Is Talking Man a kidnapping bad guy? Is he a rescuing good guy? We don't know and Thale's definitely not saying.

After awhile Elvis stops listening to tapes long enough to notice Thale's no longer in the room, and does a bit more exploring to find her in (yet another) hidden room. This one's all done up like a little girl's bedroom, and Thale's hiding under a bed in there, looking all scared and confused. Elvis, being a kind soul, lays down on the floor next to her and tries to soothe her. When she reaches out and touches his face, he has this weird little seizure-y thing, and he's suddenly seeing flashbacks from different times in her life. And thus we learn that while she doesn't talk, she doesn't need to because she can communicate telepathically.

Elvis gets a little more information than he asked for.

In the flashback we see a younger Thale with Talking Man, finding and setting up shop in the cabin, then we see an older Thale wandering out of the cabin one night and getting a glimpse one of those creature-y things we saw on the road earlier, before Talking Man grabs her and takes her back inside. He performs some kind of unanesthetized surgery on her, telling her he knows they call to her but if she goes with them, "the others" will find her and that will not be good. He says some kind of energy or waves are emanating from her and hopes removing whatever he's removing will keep that from happening so neither group finds her again.

Okay, we all know it's a tail he's cutting off, right? It's right there on that movie poster up top. Apparently Thale is one of these forest things we've been catching glimpses of, but she looks more human due to being raised by humans. (Really, she looks more human 'cause $10,000 is not nearly enough money to let you do a movie's main character in CGI.) So sure enough, a minute or two later we see Elvis and Leo opening up a freezer and there's a tail in there.

Eeew.

Now both guys are a little freaked out by this point, but it only gets worse: all of a sudden there are sneaky rustlings outside. Somethings definitely out there. Apparently Thale knows what it is. She jumps up, locks the basement door, and hides in the corner. Elvis and Leo are still trying to figure out what's going on when they realize some kind of gas is being pumped in through the door's keyhole. Just as Elvis is passing out, he reaches out and touches Thale's foot, which gives him (and us) another flashback to fill in the last of her story. Basically, we just see her meet one of her own kind and then realize how different she is from caregiver Talking Man.

Flashback-Thale finally meets up with her own kind...

...and notices the biggest difference between her and that human anatomy book she's reading.

Oh. And I should mention that right before the gas started flowing, Leo was in-process of telling Elvis that he's been diagnosed with cancer and only has a few months to live, as Thale looks on. It's kind of a weird scene that has a tacked on feeling and I'm not sure the movie really needs it, but there it is.

So Leo and Elvis are in a bad way.

Turns out it was a bunch of black ops types feeding that gas through the keyhole, and now both guys are outside, tied to chairs and blindfolded. Leo is still unconscious, and Elvis is being interrogated by The Bad Guy as his minions search the cabin for Thale. Bad Guy fills in what Talking Man hasn't already given us, that Thale was found as an infant and taken by this black ops government group for nefarious study purposes. At some point Talking Man, one of the group himself, grew a conscience and ran off with her to try and give her a better life. They've been villainously looking for her ever since.

I'm not sure I caught (or that he actually said), during his Bad Guy Monologue, how Talking Man died. If these guys had done it, they'd already have searched the cabin for Thale, right? Maybe those forest critters we've been getting all the glimpses of broke in and got him. I don't know.

Minions

The Bad Guy

So back in the cabin (which is really pretty small), no one can seem to find Thale. Until she rears up out of that fluid-filled tub and kills them all, that is. Turns out she's really fast, really strong, and really determined not to go with them. The minions don't stand a chance.

No pun intended with that "rears up out of" stuff. But it worked out great anyway, didn't it?

Necks are fragile.

Do. Not. MESS. With her.

Yes, she really did just shove a rifle through that guy's chest.

So we get a few minutes of awesome Killer-Thale-Action inside, interspersed with less awesome but still interesting Bad-Guy-Exposition outside, until Thale finishes off the minions by poking a hole in their gas tank and running like mad. Explosions ensue.

"Oh sh-" KABOOOOOOM!

"That can't be good," thinks Bad Guy.

So Bad Guy figures it's time to cut his losses and get the hell out of here. He whips out a big gun and points it at Elvis, just in time to realize he's not going to make it home for dinner. Or ever. Seems a few of Thale's sisters were lurking about in the trees nearby, and have decided to show him what they think of people who steal defenseless babies from caves. Which is not only satisfying to watch, but gives us some of the best monster shots of the film, so here are a few screenshots for your viewing pleasure. Okay, the monster shots came off better in-motion, but you get the idea.

Going from Large and In Charge...

...to I May Not Have Thought This Through as Well as I Should Have.

Ask rifle-through-the-chest-man how helpful that pistol will be.

Forest Critters prepare to make a Bad Guy sandwich.

Elvis is really appreciating his blindfold about now.

thisisnothappeningthisisnothappeningiamdreamingiamdreaming

Our work is done, here, sisters. Away!

Well, bad guys are dead and monsters are gone, but what ever happened to Thale? She's around, we find out, as she steals over to just waking Leo and touches his chest before melting into the forest for good. All that's left now is for the guys to be rescued (off-screen) and explain all those bodies to their boss, as he types up the report.

Ah, so that's what she was....

Probably Norwegian audiences already knew this, but I didn't. Hulder is "a seductive forest creature found in Scandinavian folklore." From what little information I found online, female huldrefolk are "seductively beautiful," so I'm not sure what this movie's whole furry forest demon thing was about. One site mentioned something about shape-shifting, so maybe some of that's what was going on here, with Thale shape-shifting from animal to human.

Anyway, last couple scenes are an epilogue, with Leo discovering that Thale's last touch before she ran off cured his cancer, and then Thale waking up in a forest and following a bunch of other huldrefolk off into the trees. With her kind at last for a happy ending and all that. My question is will she continue to look human or revert to her natural state? And will she ever grow that tail back? Enquiring minds want to know.

Maybe the sequel will tell us.

And now for a little secret: My knee-jerk right after I watched it was to give this movie three brains. I thought "That was fun. I probably won't watch it again, though." And while that's still more or less true, learning what I did about it's cost and going back through looking for screenshots, I realized even if I don't seek it out for repeat viewing the way I do some films, I'd definitely re-watch if it ever showed up on TV or if I and a friend who hadn't seen it were looking for a good fantasy thriller to pass the time with. Heck, I might watch it all on my own again, as well.

Anyway. Point being, I decided to up the film's brain count from its initial three to what I think is a well deserved count of FOUR SCANDINAVIAN FOREST CREATURE BRAINS. So there.

Darna vs. the Planet Women (1975)

Joyful.

If I had to describe this thing in one word, that would be it. Of course I get to use as many words as I want, but I'm telling you: this thing totally tops out the Fun-O-Meter.

Now, there are a few reviews  for this movie out there already. It's one of only two Darna films with English subtitles, so it gets more attention than a lot of her other ones. Which has me wondering what I might do here that's a little different from what I've already seen. (....hmmmmm....)

I've noticed other reviews are pretty brief, plot-wise. And they mostly all use the same screenshots, too. So I think what I'll do here is an (excruciatingly) in-depth walkthrough, and add some screenshots I didn't see anywhere else.

But fair warning, the copy I'm pulling those screenshots from is horrendous. As in "poorly focused camera phone propped in front of a TV set" horrendous. Not that I'm complaining. If someone hadn't done what they did, I'd probably never have watched this little gem at all, and that would be sad.

Darna Who?

But before we get to the movie, let's fill you in on Darna's background, in case you're in the dark there. You can also get her whole story yourself, from either one of those two links (above and further above) I've handily provided.

This little blurb is from the second link:

Darna is a classic comic book character every bit as iconic as Superman in the Philippines.

Created originally as “Varga” in 1947 by Mars Ravelo, she was recreated as Darna in 1950 due to fallout with his publisher. According to the Manila Times, “DARNA is a cultural icon born at a time when the Philippines was struggling to come out of the devastation of World War II. She served as a salve to a country looking for a champion.”

She became one of the first super heroines in film in 1951 when she was played by Rosa del Rosario. She has inspired 14 movies along with countless shows, magazines, spoofs and spin-offs. She’s even been the subject of [a] ballet performed by Ballet Philippines (the national dance troupe).

Her origin and other aspects about her have been reinvented numerous times, but some aspects always remain the same. She is always the girl Narda who has swallowed a magic white stone and when she shouts, “Darna!” turns into the “relentless crime fighter who uses her extraordinary abilities of flight and superhuman strength to help in big ways and small ways: Someone who does not tolerate injustice in any form.” 

She is truly the icon of Truth, Justice and the Filipino way.

So there you have it. Darna might be more or less (mostly less) unknown in the United States, but she's a whopping big deal over in the Philippines.

I first heard of Darna after stumbling across a film that (very lovingly) spoofed her: Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah: Ze Moveeh (a ridiculously enjoyable movie in it's own right). Looking up that movie's origins led me to Darna, her two English-subbed films, and a 2003 English language comic that was available online for awhile. I'd love to see more of her, but I've never found any of her other comics, and I'm a bit loathe to buy non-subbed movies I'll have zero chance of understanding.

But we'll see. I might go there.

Darna in a few of her screen incarnations.

Okay. On to the movie.

Narda Prays and Sees a UFO

It starts with Narda alone in the village church, praying for the entire planet (seriously). She doesn't want a thing for herself, but mentions she's open to being used to "save lives and bring justice to the world." So apparently Mother Theresa had nothing on this girl. Outside the church, Narda's little brother Ding and her fiance Ramon, are standing around waiting (and waiting... and waiting...) for her to finish.

Praying and praying and praying.

Eventually she does come out, and we see she uses a crutch to walk with as they head back into town. Now this is interesting because apparently it's the only time in her comic-movie-television history, that Narda's ever portrayed as crippled. Okay, that's mostly just interesting to me. But it's also a little interesting to you. Right? (............)

Anyway, they happen to walk past this gang of street toughs, who all decide to jump up and give Narda a hard time. Eventually one of 'em kicks her crutch out from under her and knocks her down (seriously? that's a dick move), so Ramon steps in to do a little bare knuckling. Turns out he's quite a scrapper, too. He does a fair job of keeping the entire gang on their heels, and when Narda's grandma shows up swinging her garden hoe, they're all on the run pretty quick. (They're tough, but not village-elder-with-garden-hoe tough.)

Dick move.

So. Instead of thanking Ramon for jumping in the way he did, Narda chews him out for brawling and sends him packing. (Maybe next time he can just stand aside and let her take care of things on her own.) Grandma, being older and wiser and all that, chews Narda out, reminds her that "even Jesus Christ raised his hand to the money changers" and warns her not to see everything as so black and white. So at Grandma's urging, Narda and Ding head out to find Ramon and patch things up.

And here's where things start getting weird.

About the time they catch sight of Ramon way out in the middle of a field, an honest-to-god flying saucer zips by overhead. Well, actually it stops just long enough to fzzztz poor Ramon with some kind of beam, then it flies off again. Narda and Ding (who seem only a little surprised at seeing a flying saucer right outside their village) both hustle on over, but when they get to Ramon he's not only physically frozen in place, he's flat out catatonic as well. Not good.

So we cut to inside the UFO, where we meet... THE PLANET WOMEN (or PWs for short).

What Exactly is a Planet Woman?

This is actually from a scene close to the end, but it's one of the more decent shots of the whole group together, so....

Now other reviews I've read haven't done much in the way of separating out each of the Planet Women as individuals. And I can see why: It's confusing as hell trying to figure out who's who in this movie. But I'll try to give you as much as I can on each one of 'em. (This is easier said than done since my video, audio and subtitles didn't always sync and I couldn't always tell if the person on screen is who was actually being referred to in audio or subs.)

I think in the original print, head PW Mistress Electra calls out each of her minions on camera so you know who they are. But my print is particularly messy here, there are assumedly missing frames being replaced with footage recycled from a little earlier in the same scene. In other words, these introductions didn't make a ton of sense.

I figured out which ones Carra and Orak are pretty easily, since they introduce themselves to other people later on. The other two underlings don't, so I'm only reasonably sure which of those two is which. But, as far as I can tell, this is the official Planet Woman lineup:

First we've got Mistress Electra (the Big Boss), who is white-skinned and red-haired, and has this funky eye makeup thing going on. She wears a little light blue outfit with gold somethings (lightning bolts, maybe?) on her chest, and is sporting a fine looking capital E buckle on her belt. Oh, and she's not very big on smiling. At all.

Mistress Electra
The outfit...

...and the eyes.

Next there's Carra, who's violet-skinned and platinum-haired. She's got a purplish-blue bikini with stylish yin-yang symbols on the boobs. We get a groovy fight scene with her later, and judging from that, she's the martial artist of this little group.

Carra

Then we get Noche, red-skinned and black-haired, in a yellow outfit with an octopus (I think) on it. About all I was able to figure out about her is that her name means night in Filipino. (An octopus squirts ink which is black as night? Afraid that's as far as my Tenuous Link Skills get me, here.)

Noche

Then comes Mahiya. She's orangish-yellow-skinned and yellow-haired. Her name means magic in Filipino, and that's pretty much how I figured out which PW she is: She does a lot of disappearing and other magic-y stuff. Her outfit is a pair of white Daisy Dukes with a red and yellow halter top. Unlike Electra, she does smile a lot. Also she swings her hips around while she talks. A lot.

Mahiya

And finally we have Orak, who's green-skinned and blue-haired. She wears a green and white bikini that's actually pretty plain compared to the rest of the group's getups. Apparently she has something to do with snakes because, in her one big scene she slithers around on the ground all snake-like while sneaking into a scientist's apartment. Plus she makes snakes appear out of thin air (poof!) when she's battling with Darna.

Orak

Okay. So these Planet Women have a very specific reason for being here, and we get to hear all about it as Electra explains it to the underlings (not the first time they've heard it, I'm sure) and for our benefit (definitely our first time): The plan is ...wait for it... to kidnap a bunch of Earth's leading scientists, force them to design, build and embed huge engines into the center of the Earth, then fly the whole planet back to the PWs home system. Oh, and all life on Earth will die, because stopping a planet's rotation and breaking its orbit does that.

Now that, my friends, is a plan. Back to the story.

God Lends a Hand and Darna Appears

So the Planet Women are all standing around this mysterious container on their ship, asking it to identify all of Earth's leading scientists (who all happen to be Filipino), and this is the list that mystery container comes up with:

• Dr. Sarco, head nuclear scientist at Some Military Base
• Dr. Villafuerte of The Institute of Advanced Metallurgy
• Dr. Anastasia Madrid of The History and Cultural Commission of the Philippines
• Dr. Jereky Rossman of The Commission for Moral and Traditional Behavior 

They also ask about chemical electronics and space travel, but mystery container doesn't seem to have any ideas on those counts. (Say, what is this mysterious container and could it have anything at all to do with poor frozen-in-place Ramon? We shall see.)

MYSTERY CONTAINER

Back in the field, Narda and Ding are huddled around Ramon's poor paralyzed self, and Narda's praying for all she's worth, asking God to lend a hand. She's telling him this is all her fault, and if she hadn't gotten so angry Ramon wouldn't have even been in this field, etc. She even tosses her crutch away, promising to never use it again if God helps her get Ramon back to his old moving around self.

All of a sudden, someone on a stepladder shines a blue spotlight down on our little group. It's God! (Okay, we don't actually see the stepladder and the voice doesn't actually say it's God. But you can totally tell it is because of the MOVIE GOD VOICE. Hard to misconstrue, that voice. Besides, she was just praying, so we know it's God.)

Anyway, God tells her she's pure of heart, unblemished of soul, etc. and strongly suggests she hold out her hand to receive a gift he's got for her. Of course, she does (not the kind of suggestion you turn down), and from heaven falls a tiny little stone with the name DARNA engraved on it. God says any time Narda swallows this stone and shouts the name written on it, she'll be transformed into DARNA, a super-powered heroine who must always use her might only for the good of mankind. (And to become herself, Narda just has to say her own name and there she'll be.)

Okay, it's a fairly tall stepladder....

So Narda swallows the stone and BOOOOM! Darna appears for the very first time in this movie. Not being a time waster, off she flies to find that UFO.

DARNA! Champion of The Oppressed and Stuff!

Darna Meets Electra and Abductions (Try To) Happen

Now, I'm going to come right out and say that up to this point, Narda has seemed a fairly dull and lifeless young lady. So I'm happy to report Darna has plenty of cheek, and is even a bit full of herself, in an innocent and good-natured way.

She finds that saucer pretty quick, and since it's conveniently empty, she sneaks on board and discovers it's Ramon's mind inside that mystery container we saw the PWs asking questions of earlier. (Ah, so that's why the PWs were getting i-don't-knows to some of their questions--a simple village lad only knows so much).

Just then Mistress Electra walks in, so Darna grabs a super-special headband that's lying about and says she'll destroy it unless Electra puts Ramon's mind back in his body, and fast. Electra considers this a dirty trick for Darna to be pulling, but says since she needs that headband to get back home she'll agree to a trade. Off Darna flies with the headband as collateral, Electra follows in the UFO, and beams Ramon's mind back into his body. Darna, being the good and honest egg she is, hands the headband right over and Electra is out of there. Whew! Crisis averted.

I will totally break this headband thingy!

Now Ramon is starting to stir, so Darna shouts and changes back to Narda, then immediately grabs that crutch she promised to forsake in exchange for God's help (how soon we forget). Ramon is confused and thinks he's had some kind of weird in-the-middle-of-a-field dream. So Narda starts pumping him hard for information, but all he remembers is being asked about world leaders. When he mentions he learned everything he knows on the subject from a magazine he read back at her place the other day, Narda and Ding dash home to do some reading of their own.

Back at the UFO, Electra is sending her minions out on a kidnapping-scientists-spree, so they can get to working on those planet engines. No time to waste.

So we go to an army base, where Dr. Sarco (I swear one of the soldiers called him Dr. Rossman in-audio, but the subs are calling him Dr. Sarco.) is being dropped off at his quarters for the night. Orak slithers her way into his place and happily announces herself as "Orak, from the planet Arko Eris."

Orak, slithering....

Well, what do you know? Doc has heard of the place! "In the galaxy with the twin suns," he says? "Impossible! It's too far away and no one has created a ship that could get here from there." But pretty quick Orak has him convinced and ready to accompany her back to her ship, so they can "share their advanced knowledge of the nuclear sciences" with him (pretty sure she has some swampland in Florida to sell him, too).

But before she gets him out the door, Darna busts right through the door (leaving a perfectly Darna shaped hole in it) and the fight is on. Orak uses snake-powers to make snakes appear all over the room, which doesn't seem to bother Darna in the least, and the two kind of wrestle around till Darna notices Doc being strangled by a big Orak-induced boa constrictor and runs over to save him. Orak knows when she's out of her league, and figures this is her chance to escape. Which she does.

Stylish Entrance

Songs Are Sung and Ruffians Fight Dirty

Meanwhile, back at the village, Ramon has brought his guitar-playing buddy over to stand outside Narda's window and serenade her. Much comic relief ensues as the guy begins various blatantly unromantic songs (funeral march, opera, etc.), but the two finally settle on a song by Ruben (Robin in the subtitles) Tagalog called "Take a Look My Love." Guitar-Friend plays while Ramon sings lip syncs to a badly scratched record.

Give pity to my thirsty heart!

Apparently Ruben Tagalog was an actual Filipino singer/actor. I listened to a few of his songs online, but didn't find anything to match the one they're doing here. At any rate, the man was quite a crooner. In case you were curious (you know you were), here are the lyrics from the subtitles.

Listen my darling

To a song filled with care

Coming from a loving heart

Don't deny me

Give pity to my thirsty heart

Dying for love

Take a look, my love

Take a look, my love

I am begging

Even for just

One glimpse of you, my dear

It is only to you that I pray

So that my heart may live

My Heart

My heart to live

I'm hoping what we have here is a case of poor subtitles/translation. And judging from the movie's subs overall, that's likely. Even when subs are accurate, songs and poetry can be tough to get right.

Anyway, All this racket wakes up Grandma, and she bangs on Narda's and Ding's door, telling Narda to come on out. Of course, Ding is the only one in there (Narda being out saving the world as Darna, and all), so he has to stall Grandma until Darna zips through the window right into her bed, changing back to Narda just as Grandma busts in. Another whew! So then a little visiting happens, until Ramon mentions he's remembered another scientist's name from his "dream," and Narda's off to do some more saving. 

On his way home, Ramon's jumped by those ruffians again, whom he totally beats the crap out of for the second time until one of 'em fights dirty and beats him unconscious with a club (dick move #2). Luckily, Narda/Darna is close enough to hear Ding hollering, and swings back around to scrub the floor with that gang before she heads out again.

Another dick move.

It was weird though, even though they're only a few yards from their house, Darna flies Ding home on her back. For a long time. Maybe they didn't go straight home. Maybe she was giving him a ride around the countryside for fun. Fate of the world stuff should never be a reason to not show your kid brother a good time! And Narda is nothing if not a good sister. (Much like mine. Although my sister has never offered me a flying piggyback ride. That I recall, and I think that's something I would remember.)

Piggyback!

A Rooftop Battle and Darna Is Blinded

So now we're at The Institute of Advanced Metallurgy where Carra, disguised as a reporter, is meeting old Dr. Villafuerte. Well, she's kind of disguised. She's wearing a white mini dress over her bikini and a veil that (kind of) covers her purple face. Doc takes note of her purple legs. arms, neck and hair, then comments on the strangeness of today's youth fashions (ha ha). Anyway, she lures him up to the roof for a "photo shoot," where she knocks him out and is just about to put him in her helicopter (apparently she can't fly on her own and where did she get that helicopter), when Darna arrives!

The decent-est flying shot of the film.

Incidentally, Darna's arrival here features the best flying shot of the movie. It's a quick one, and it was a practical effect, done with a stuntwoman leaping off something high and assuming "the flying position" on her way down to the air mattress. The visual effects shots in this movie overall leave something to be desired, which is probably why this shot looks so nice to me.

Anyway, time for the big fight! Carra advances on Darna and goes all Karate Kid, prancing around striking martial art poses, but Darna totally laughs her off. After mocking the Planet Woman with a few purposefully ridiculous poses of her own, Darna waves her in and the fight is on.

Cocky Darna

Now apparently these Planet Women are pretty strong, 'cause we're seeing Carra buckle metal with her hands and feet, but she's not having much effect on Darna when she connects. At one point, Darna seriously clobbers Carra in the face, and she goes down like a lead weight. I thought that was the end of it right there (in a real brawl it would've been), but Carra jumps up and wades back in.

SOCK!

Anyway, Darna doesn't seem very worried. She's been dancing around like she's in the ring with Clubber Lang from Rocky III. (But is that wise? We all know what Rocky got for being cocky in a fight with Clubber, right? Eventually Clubber knocked him into next week!) And that's just what Carra does here. She tags Darna with a knife hand across the bridge of her nose and Darna's seeing stars. Well, actually she's seeing nothing. For some reason this karate chop blinds her, so now she's fighting in the dark.

Not So Cocky Darna

Which, surprisingly, doesn't seem to give Carra any edge at all. Why? Because Darna's not just strong, she has a "super" in front of just about every personal descriptor you could imagine! She just uses her super hearing, super speed and super reflexes to maintain an upper hand, sight or no sight.

Well about this time, old doc wakes up and starts woozily stumbling around the rooftop. When Carra backs into him, accidentally knocking him over the building's side, Darna flies down to save him. (Either her sight has very suddenly returned or she's still using those other super senses, not sure which.) Regardless, Carra sees her chance to get the hell out of Dodge and escapes in her helicopter while Darna is old-doctor-rescuing.

Electra Is Mad and Darna Dances the Night Away

Back at the UFO, Electra is pissed and giving Orak and Carra a dressing down for failing at their respective kidnappings: "You were trained for one hundred years for this mission!" Let's hope the others do better than you did!" etc. And that's how we learn these Planet Women have a much longer life span than we do. (Which plays into things later.)

And speaking of whether the others are doing better, our next stop is a disco dance party for the rich and highly-educated, already well underway. We see Noche and Mahiya skulking in a corner (as much as one can skulk, having rainbow-hued skin and wearing brightly colored bikinis in a room full of formally dressed regular people), waiting for the woman and man of the hour to arrive, which they eventually do.

They're Dr. Anastasia Madrid and someone the subs refer to as Dr. Sarco, but it certainly isn't the same actor as the guy I thought was Sarco earlier. Besides, this fellow's introduced as an expert in space travel, Sarco was a nuclear guy. So who knows. He's SOMEBODY IMPORTANT and the Planet Women want him. That's good enough for me.

So Darna arrives wearing a stylish (for the 70s) orange dress/cape thing over her own bikini-esque costume, and I instantly thought of Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman, who was never above altering a costume to suit the occasion herself. Nothing to do with anything going on here, it's just what I thought about when Darna walked in wearing this totally different outfit. Don't judge me.

Wonder Woman may be the one known for outfit-swapping...

...but Darna did it first.

At any rate, a young gentlemen at this party quickly becomes enamored with Darna, and pretty much drags her onto the dance floor, as everyone else stops dancing to watch and clap along. (woo, disco!) Pretty quick Darna discovers she really likes all this attention young gentleman and the crowd are giving her, and she totally forgets to keep an eye on the two scientists she came there to protect. Which is not a good thing, because...

Travolta never had it so good.

...over in the corner, Noche and Mahiya are nonchalantly injecting those scientists with a knockout drug and dragging them away. The song ends to a roomful of applause, but Darna realizes to her horror she's temporarily placed her own pleasure above DUTY TO OTHERS, and has reaped it's foul reward.

She races outside to find the two PWs leading their victims into the night. A fight (of course) ensues, and we quickly find out Mahiya can disappear, create duplicates of herself, and do all sorts of other tricky things that let her get in some cheap shots while staying out of Darna's reach. Eventually though, Darna lands a lucky punch and knocks her out. Then, while she's looking around for Noche, both Planet Women sneak away. Without the scientists. I sense a pattern.

Mahiya pulls a Christopher Reeve from Superman II.

Electra Sexes Things up and Falls in Love

By this time the Planet Women have figured out Darna is too tough to beat in a slugfest, so they resort to subterfuge by hypnotizing Ramon and using him to lure her into a trap. At the village a massive storm is... storming, and Mistress Electra plays damsel-in-distress, hoping Ramon will come out to "save" her. He does, carrying her inside and quickly stripping to the waist for a Hunk Moment. (Can't just stay in those wet clothes, can he?)

When Ramon suggests Electra get out of her wet clothes so he can dry them, he's a perfect gentleman, looking away while she strips and giving her a blanket to wrap herself in. But when she drops the blanket and asks him to hold her, he (inexplicably, to me) decides to have sex with her. Huh?

Species: The Beginning

Next morning, Electa's gone all soft and sappy, apparently having never met as good and decent a man as Ramon on her world. Not that being sweet on him stops her from carrying out her dastardly plan. She may like the guy, but business is business. So she hypnotizes him, tells him he won't remember their night together even though she'll "hold it dear in [her] memory always," and takes off.

Now, this seducing of Ramon thing is the only part of the movie that didn't work for me. Other than this one scene, the film is over-the-top wholesome. To have Ramon hopping in the sack with a stranger, having spent the whole movie demonstrating how wildly in love with Narda he is, just didn't make sense. The scene was so out of sync with the film's overall tone, it was jarring. Okay. Had to get that off my chest. I'm fine now.

So being in Electra's thrall, Ramon heads over to Narda's place and motions for her to follow him. She does, with Ding trailing along, and once everyone's in position the Planet Women spring their evil trap! Which really just consists of grabbing Ramon and threatening to do him harm if Narda (who's already transformed into Darna) doesn't come quietly. Mahiya ties her wrists with an unbreakable chain and everyone trots off to the UFO.

"This metal comes from our galaxy and even you can't break it!"

With Ramon as hostage, Electra figures she's gonna make Darna go out and gather up all the scientists they've been trying (and failing) to kidnap. But first she chunters on a bit about how the Planet Woman race has mastered the ninth dimension of knowledge (poor Earth has only mastered the second), and we find out this whole world-stealing thing is due to overpopulation: Apparently the Planet Women, with all that ninth dimension knowledge, have totally done away with aging and now they need a second planet to help house all their no-longer-dying-of-old-age people.

So how does Darna get herself (and all the rest of us) out of this mess? She bluffs her way out, telling Electra there's a thousand more super-powered women hidden around the world, just waiting for her signal to come out and start kicking Planet Woman butt. For whatever reason, Electra takes Darna at her word (gullible much?) and agrees to the winner takes all one-on-one fight Darna proposes instead. If Darna loses, she'll help the Planet Women enslave the Earth. If she wins, they have to pack up all their evil plans and head home. It's a risky and hare-brained perfect solution!

The Main Event: Darna vs. Electra

So everyone heads outside for the Big Battle, which isn't really very big and comes off a bit anticlimactic. Turns out Mistress Electra can also fly, she's just as strong as Darna, and she can fire Darna-destroying disintegration beams out of her hands. Fortunately she's an incredibly lousy shot (as in stormtrooper lousy) and never even comes close to hitting Darna. After a minute the two of 'em end up in a mid-air clinch, where Darna gets Electra into a submission hold and that's the end of things.

Truly, a clash of titans.

So Mistress Electra, having lost a fair fight, gives another little speech (I think she's talked more in the last ten minutes than she has the entire movie) on how Planet Women always honor their word, walks over to plant a smouldering goodbye kiss on Ramon, and they all climb into their UFO and take off never to be seen again...

SMOOOOOOTCH!

Despondent Planet Women, all.

...as credits roll.

OF COURSE I'm giving this little movie FIVE ARKO-ERISSIAN BRAINS, on fun factor merit alone. (As you know, reviews around here are based on 90% fun factor and 10% everything else.)

But speaking of credits rolling, I'd noticed IMDB and every other site I checked is woefully thin as far as listing credits for this movie. So I decided to list them all out below (as well as I could read them on my blurry print, anyway). I just thought everybody involved with the film did a nice job, and deserved a little recognition. So there's that down below.

(Originally I was gonna go through and add links for as many people as I could. Some of these folks are on IMDB but not actually credited with this movie, while others are mentioned elsewhere along with their involvement in the film. But man I'm ready to be done with this post. So this non-linked list is going to have to do.)

Bye now.

 The Credits (If You Really Want to Know)

Pre-Title
Vilma Santos - Narda/Darna
Rosanna Ortiz - Elektra
Zandro Zamora - Ramon
Bentot Jr. - Ding

Starring
Eva Linda - Orak
Lita Vasquez
Diana Villa
(Introducing) Lieza Zobel

Also Starring
Joe Sison
Virginia Montes
Veronica Palileo
Paquito Salcedo
Pons De Guzman
Steve Alcarado
Leon Pajaron
Nestor Rueda
Max Rojo
Kristy Kintanar
Romy Luartes
Joseph Jardinazo
Jimmy De La Fuente
Luciano Prieto
The Tanay Boys

Color Cinematography - Amado De Guzman
Music - Carding Cruz
Film Editors - Efren Jarlego, Arman Jarlego
Special Photographic Effects - Tommy Marcelino
Art Director - Ben Otico
Sound Effects - Ramon Reyes, Sebastian Sayson
Sound Mixer - Narciso Teope
Sound Supervisor - Luis Reyes
Field Sound Man - Ernesto Eguia

Vilma’s Makeup - Dading Ravela
Makeup - Cedille Baun
Props Man - Mariano Otico
Setting - Ambrocio Diaz
Stills - Ric Yonzon
Production-In-Charge - Cayetano Lalic
Production Manager - Leo Valdez
Assistant Director - Deocareza
Assistant Cameraman - Delphin Teope
Schedule Master - Oddie Reyes

Wigs - Kanekalon
Costumes - Rudy Diego, Jove’s Custom Tailors
Shoes - The Nail
Color Processing - LVN Color Laboratories
Acknowledgments - Social Security System Building, Brazil’s All-star Tailor, Royal Savings Bank (Bacoor, Cavite)

Screenplay and Direction - Armando Garces

Exec. Producer - Espiridion Laxa