Directed by Lewis Schoenbrun Production
company Tomcat Films | Edited by Lewis Schoenbrun Distributed by Wild Eye Releasing | |
Written by Keith Schaffner
Jeremiah Campbell Starring Jordan Lawson
Shevaun Kastl | ||
The Amazing Bulk is a 2012 American direct-to-video superhero film directed by Lewis Schoenbrun. Considered to be a mockbuster of the Marvel Studios film The Incredible Hulk, the film's settings and visuals are almost entirely all reused stock imagery, graphics, and video purchased from various websites.
Contents
Plot
Government research scientist Henry "Hank" Howard (Jordan Lawson) has been commissioned by General Darwin (Terence Lording), who suffers from amathophobia, to develop a serum that will increase the user's strength and longevity. Howard wishes to marry Darwin's daughter, Hannah (Shevaun Kastl), but Darwin angrily refuses. In an effort to prove that his serum is successful, Howard injects himself with it, allowing him to turn into a colossal purple humanoid. That night, he goes on a date with Hannah to a carnival. They then take the subway, wherein a mugger approaches them at gunpoint and steals Howard's wallet and a flash drive containing secret files about the serum. After Howard unsuccessfully tries to injure the mugger, the criminal runs away, and Howard drives Hannah home.
Later that night, while witnessing the same mugger murdering a young woman, Howard transforms into the Bulk and kills the man; he runs off as police arrive to the scene, and they notice purple blood on the ground. Detectives Ray Garton (Jed Rowen) and Lisa Tuttle (Deirdre V. Lyons) find Howard's wallet and return it to him the next day. When Garton finds a purple stain on his hand, he becomes convinced that Howard is responsible for the mugger's death. They watch as Howard returns to the scene of the crime, and they confront him, causing him to turn into the Bulk.
The Bulk goes on a rampage throughout the city as the detectives pursue him. The Bulk sends cars flying through the air, one of which lands on Tuttle, killing her. Garton, enraged by his partner's death, shoots at the Bulk, who grabs and destroys a news helicopter. The Bulk morphs back into Howard and is arrested by Garton. In prison, Garton threatens Howard for killing Tuttle, until Darwin arrives with a serum to keep the Bulk under control. Darwin tells Howard that clownish supervillain Dr. Werner von Kantlove (Randal Malone), along with his assistant Lolita Kantlove (Juliette Angeli), have been destroying famous monuments and landmarks. Kantlove attempts to destroy the moon, but finds a monkey has hijacked the rocket.
Darwin explains that the only way Kantlove can be stopped is with the Bulk, and convinces Howard to work with him when he says he will allow Howard to marry Hannah. Howard is deployed several miles from Kantlove's castle. After sprinting through several odd locations, such as through a golf course and past wind turbines, Howard arrives at the castle. Turning into the Bulk, he kills Kantlove's guards, and the military destroys the castle. Darwin then betrays the Bulk, ordering for a jet to bomb him. After a lengthy chase featuring seemingly random stock animations, a nuclear bomb is dropped on the Bulk.
Howard arrives at Darwin's home, having inexplicably survived the bombing. He reunites with Hannah, but when Darwin sees that he has survived, they break into a struggle and fall off a balcony, which kills them both. Later, Hannah visits Howard's grave and leaves a rose there. After she leaves, a drunken Garton arrives at the grave. When he begins urinating on it, the arms of the Bulk emerge from the ground and punch him.
Cast
Production
Director Lewis Schoenbrun was researching stock computer-generated imagery for the production of a low-budget horror mockbuster of Spider-Man, starring a female protagonist. When discussing with a producer the idea of making a comic book film featuring large amounts of green screen, he instead decided to create a parody of the character the Hulk. Schoenbrun stated that he never initially intended to make a bad film, but retroactively considered the film a parody. Many of the characters have blatant parallels with Marvel Comics characters associated with the Hulk mythos; Henry Howard with Bruce Banner, General Darwin with General Ross, and the Bulk with the Hulk.
Scriptwriting for the film was completed over a span of four months, while finding all the CGI elements, along with creating storyboards, occurred over the course of six months. All of the film's settings and transitions, as well as much of its imagery, are stock graphics and backgrounds taken from numerous websites, including eBay, Digital Juice, Inc., and TurboSquid.
The film was financed by director Schoenbrun himself. Shooting the film, which cost $6,000, took place over a period of five days. The entire film was shot on a green screen stage in California. Audio mixing cost $3,000, colour correction cost $1,000, and another $4,000 went towards CGI, software, and the film's composer, among other elements. The film's score, composed by Mark Daniel Dunnett, also features classical music from composers like Beethoven, Strauss, and Tchaikovsky.
As a fan of director Stanley Kubrick, Schoenbrun included numerous references to Kubrick's works throughout the film, including a scene of satellites in space reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey; furthermore, the names of the characters Dr. Werner von Kantlove and his assistant Lolita allude to the Kubrick films Dr. Strangelove and Lolita.
Release and reception
The film was originally released on DVD on April 17, 2012 by Tomcat Films. The film went out of print, but was subsequently rediscovered, repackaged, and released on DVD and digital platforms worldwide by independent label Wild Eye Releasing on May 19, 2015.
It has received almost universally negative reviews, targeted at its acting, editing, continuity, and visual effects and settings. A staff writer for the website Horror Society found it to be absurd and incomprehensible, saying that "the way the film was shot makes it utterly impossible to follow it the way a film should be followed". Film critic Rob Rector criticised the apparent laziness of the filmmakers, stating that it seems they "stumbled across a bunch of free clipart on the internet and decided to weave it together as a backdrop for the film".
Felix Vasquez Jr. of Cinema Crazed berated the film's effects and design, remarking that the filmmakers could have "whipped together a movie out of Windows 95 clip art, Microsoft Paint, an old HD camera someone owned, and a lot of green screens in under a week at the director’s loft somewhere in California". James DePaolo of the website WickedChannel called it "The Room of superhero movies" and wrote that it "is quite possibly one of the best worst films ever made".
In response to the criticisms, director Schoenbrun has stated that the film is supposed to belong in the same vein as films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and that most critics "just don’t get the concept of live action people in a comic book world".