Although cartoonist Lee Falk is best-known for creating The Phantom, his Mandrake the Magician arrived first. Even before the more popular Phantom leapt from the comic strips page to the big screen to slam evil in his own serial, the latter beat him to it … and then resurfaced one undistinguished Wednesday night on NBC in the pilot pic Mandrake. Like The Phantom, Mandrake comes with an orphaned origin, being raised by a Tibetan monk with the unmistakable voice of James Hong.

In the present day, Mandrake (Anthony Herrera, 1976’s Helter Skelter) enjoys the high life as a Vegas stage illusionist, looking not unlike David Copperfield if he neglected combs. One night, Mandrake’s chintzy act is interrupted by the death of an elderly scientist in the audience. Before croaking, the old man manages to gasp the name “Arkadian,” a tycoon played by Brady Bunch patriarch Robert Reed.

Among other business ventures, Arkadian owns an amusement park, eventually allowing Mandrake to have a showdown atop the world’s fastest, tallest, bestest roller coaster, once he starts investigating the scientist’s “heart attack.” With the help of his sorcerer sidekick (Ji-Tu Cumbuka, Mandingo) and sexy stage assistant (Simone Griffeth, Death Race 2000), Mandrake uncovers a whole Manchurian Candidate conspiracy involving Arkadian employees as sleeper agents.

Mandrake boasts the power of hypnosis by touching people’s heads, thereby projecting their memories on the wall. More often, he touches the gaudy medallion hanging from his neck and — presto! — an object appears to confuse his adversaries. Among the illusions used are a tiger, a bird of prey and a brick wall. This being made for TV, the effect is hardly cinematic. And this being 1979, Mandrake plants an unexpected kiss on the scientist’s daughter (Gretchen Corbett, The Savage Bees), then explains, “That was the only thing I could think of to shut you up.”

Helmed by another Falk, the no-relation Harry (High Desert Kill), the telefilm doesn’t have much production quality — example: cheap kitchen timers sub for bombs — which Herrara nearly matches by having even less to offer as a leading man. Watching Mandrake won’t hurt (much), even as it fails to do the trick. —Rod Lott

An anthology of speculative fiction, Portals posits that man has created a black hole. Global blackouts follow, as do odd behavior from citizens, citywide evacuations and mysterious monoliths — portals, if you will — that pop up everywhere with no apparent rhyme or reason. This setup, courtesy V/H/S: Viral producer Christopher White, is full of possibilities.

The four selected to explore, however, greatly underwhelm. A family flees its California home, encountering a portal on a desert road. Amid the chaos, a 911 call center’s operations are paused by a portal suddenly appearing between cubicle rows. Sisters in Indonesia stumble upon a portal in a parking garage. Finally, after the credits, scientists in Liverpool play guinea pigs with the portals, taking one giant leap for mankind.

Portals is nothing if not consistent, but that consistency arrives as aggravating ambiguity. Nothing is explained; rules appear to be as bendable as wire hangers; characters are barely introduced; they spout mumbo jumbo that hardly moves things forward. If you intend your sci-fi film to be that vague, may I suggest your name be Stanley Kubrick or Andrei Tarkovsky? Being deceased, neither numbers among the helmers involved: The Blair Witch Project’s Eduardo Sanchez, Beyond Skyline’s Liam O’Donnell and V/H/S/2 contributors Timo Tjahjanto and Gregg Hale.

Portals’ problem is its script, not the effects. Undaunted, White tried again two years later, reviving his vertical-rectangular-object concept with a fresh coat of paint (and lesser-known directors) as the omnibus Doors. I won’t knock it ’til I try it. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Mary Shelley’s foundational science-fiction/horror novel Frankenstein inspired this tale of systemic violence and grief gone mad. First-time filmmaker Bomani J. Story crafts a solid narrative of a young woman obsessed with bringing her slain brother back from the dead.

Brilliant Vicaria (Laya DeLeon Hayes) believes death is nothing more than a disease that can be cured, a theory that seeded in her mind following the accidental shooting death of her mother and the intentional murder of her brother Chris (Edem Atsu-Swanzy) by rival gang members. She snatches Chris’ body just after he was fatally gunned down, stowing the corpse in an abandoned utility room on her projects’ grounds.

Vicaria builds a machine that can harness the electricity from a nearby power station, and much like other Frankenstein adaptations before it, the ins and outs of this machine aren’t explained in full, letting the viewer suspend disbelief without a lot of cockamamie, pseudo-scientific jargon weighing the proceedings down. And much like in Frankenstein, Vicaria is successful in bringing Chris back, though of course he comes back all wrong. The gentle giant is now a bloodthirsty fiend whose motivations for killing are just as fuzzy as the methods that reanimated him. This is less Mary Shelley, more Hammer; the creature here isn’t a ponderous malcontent out for revenge, but a brute who can’t help but harm others indiscriminately — or at least, whenever he feels threatened.

Can Vicaria keep him a secret without losing her own life? This basic task is made all the more difficult by Kango (Denzel Whitaker), a local drug dealer who forces Vicaria to help him with his business after she steals some of his heroin to keep it off the streets and out of the hands of her father (Chad L. Coleman). Also complicating matters is Jada (Amani Summer), Vicaria’s little cousin, who seems to befriend Chris. To say that things eventually go sideways is an understatement.

There is much to love about The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster, but particular praise must be given to Hayes’ performance as Vicaria. She plays the role with subtlety and a plethora of emotions overlapping and interweaving with one another — from the titular anger to fear to joy and beyond. We understand the character as brilliant for her age, but we also see shades of her youth and at times naivety bleed through the brilliance, making the film overall as much a coming-of-age narrative as it is a horror film about life and death.

The look of the creature is especially impressive as well, as is the machinery that brings him back to life. Both harken directly back to James Whale’s iconic 1931 Frankenstein, with the creature’s hulking frame and sutured visage, and the elaborate electrical mechanics of Vicaria’s invention. These fantastical elements contrast nicely with the lived-in feel of the projects setting, a backdrop that allows the filmmaker to explore reality-based horrors like gang violence, poverty and drug addiction. It makes Vicaria’s quest all the more believable — who wouldn’t want to eradicate death in an environment like this?

The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster is overall an engaging and nightmarish update on a literary classic, one squarely positioned in modern day concerns yet also painted in broader, more universal themes, giving it a feeling of timelessness, much like Shelley’s novel. Story shows tremendous talent, and one cannot wait to see what he does next. —Christopher Shultz

Get it at Amazon.

Whilst flying over Asia’s version of the Bermuda Triangle, a commercial airliner is hit by pterodactyls, sending it crashing into the ocean. The scant few survivors wash up Lost on an island — Crocodile Island! 

It’s called that because, well, crocodiles. Big ones. 

Also, giant spiders, which make up the best stretch of an unremarkable movie from China. 

As a middle-aged Everyman, Gallen Lo dispassionately leads a generic group of characters, from his underage daughter and her boyfriend he doesn’t approve of, to such disposable types as Pregnant Woman and Nerdy Guy. 

That’d be less of a bother if Crocodile Island’s creature CGI didn’t look so unfinished, placing it under the already low bar of Syfy premieres. (Speaking of, Shixing Xu, co-helmer with Simon Zhao, since has remade the Syfy staple Sharktopus for his people’s republic.) What could have been a stupid-fun Jurassic lark is instead just stupid, plus thoroughly uninspired and dreadfully dull. 

Since China lifted its ban on having a second child, how about imposing one to keep Xu and Zhao from making a follow-up? —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

For its early years, starting in 1995, the fledgling UPN network operated on a business model leaning heavily on cheesy, ultimately short-lived sci-fi/action series, like Nowhere Man, The Sentinel and Deadly Games. In title, concept and production quality, Dark Asset feels like one of those shows, albeit never aired and salvaged by cobbling several episodes together into a faux feature. The first hour is so overstuffed with flashbacks, collectively introducing close to a dozen characters, that if not for the three-decade difference, my comparison wouldn’t be out of the question.

Total charmer Byron Mann (2018’s Skyscraper) stars as calm, cool, collected John Doe. He’s ex-Special Forces — “a soldier’s soldier,” we’re told — and the latest recruit for a shadowy super-spy operation in which Dr. Cain (Robert Patrick, Terminator 2: Judgment Day) shoves a microchip into the brain. Said chip allows Dr. Cain and his iPad to implant ideas into said brain — not quite control, but the power of suggestion.

Should’ve gone with control, Doc! Doe disobeys orders and punches, kicks and chops his way outta the lab and to a hotel bar where he meets Jane (Helena Mattsson, Species: The Awakening), a beautiful blonde in town for the requisite “business conference.” As with writer/director Michael Winnick’s superior Guns Girls & Gambling, his camera loves — and I mean loves — Mattsson. If you’ve ever wanted to see her fight open-bloused, may I direct your attention to Dark Asset.

But it’s not likely to keep it. With a two-thirds-in twist you’ll guess upon Clue One, the structure of John Doe telling most of the movie’s story to Jane with constant cutaways that show it — flashy cars, pulsating lights, fisticuffs with swarthy bizmen — interrupts any gained momentum, if not derails it. The flatness of digital video doesn’t assist Winnick in achieving his B-pic vision; ergo, the UPNity of it all. At Dark Asset’s best, the Mann-as-machine fight scenes, I was reminded of Jet Li’s similarly action-driven The One; at its worst, well, UPN’s The Burning Zone, I guess? —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.