Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films,
2018
Images from the Internet
The League of Superheroes (aka
ABCs of Superheroes)
Written and directed by Jens
Holzheuer and Oliver Tietgen
Boesewicht
Film / Wild Eye Releasing / MVD Visual
86
minutes, 2015 / 2018
www.wildeyereleasing.com
Oh man,
the cinema and other mass media have just been inundated with superhero films. These mega-monsters are as big on
CGI and they lack in story, or soul. As someone who grew upon comic books from
the Silver Era into the Modern, who got to hang out with Jim Steranko and Grey
Morrow in a semi-private manner, I find it just too… overwhelming is the word
that comes to mind. Each film seems to need to add more heroes, bigger villains,
more destruction, and it all becomes numbing. In the similar way as we drown in
Freddy-Jason-Michael-Leatherface franchises, the same is true with the Marvel
Universe (and to a lesser extent the DC Universe as they have generally been
less financial successful than their rivals in the past couple of decades).
Every
once in a while, a non-major, independently sponsored superheroes release makes
it out there, and they tend to widely range from the excellent (such as Kick Ass, and the obscure and goofy Surge of Power mini-franchise) to the
pretty bad (e.g., Rise of the Black Bat).
There are lots of phenomenal fan videos out there as well, including the “Super
Power Beat Down” series on YouTube. That’s why I was interested in seeing this
German film, which began its life as ABCs
of Superheroes. Alternative superheroes films are definitely a mixed bag,
and then combine that with Euro-trash sensibility that has replaced
Expressionism, I’m going in hoping for some wild rides.
Well,
the original “ABCs” title makes way more sense than the new “League,” as like
the ABCs of Death series, these are
short tales of about 5 minutes each that follows in alphabetical order. One
seriously needs to think about how you’re going to approach this film on a few
different levels. For example, it’s recorded in English with some definite
German dialect; it’s not hard to understand, fortunately. Next, the acting is atrociously bad and campy (I’m going to
say purposefully), the effects are quite amateurish albeit fun, and the writing
is kinda hokey; in the right frame of mind, however – and I’m there – one can
see this for the amount of fun that it is.
There
is also a bit of a wit about it among all the tomfoolery. For example, there is
a He-Man send-off where the Skeletor (all with different names, of course)
character goes through a portal and arrives on modern Earth, to become a hero;
He-Man and She-Ra realize how boring their lives are without him.
 |
| Bai Ling |
What’s
used as a framework to join all these stories together, which we return to
often, is an inattentive mother and her young daughter trying not to be bored
by reading a comic given to her by mom to quiet her called, what else, ABCs of Superheroes. Each of the stories
comes from this comic, and we see the girl’s reactions to them while her mom either
ignores or chastises her.
There
is certainly a level of social commentary that can also be found if one
scratches down, such as a Yul Brenner-ish Westworld
character (“Cowboy Man”) who goes against a Mexican Villain (Cheddar Guevara…
get it?), which turns into a reality television show somewhat like Storage Wars. A great quote in this
segment is, “This is how I roll: I got one hand on my Bible, one hand on my
gun, and one hand on my credit card.” So you can see that while it’s not very
serious and lots of WTF moments, it still occasionally manages to keep a level
of witty smarts on some level. That’s what I like about the film.
There
is lots and lots of female nudity of various body types, the blood splatter effects
are almost all digital, and the costumes are, well, pathetic (one looks like
the Muppet Grinch Who Stole the Hulk If He Was an Ape). There is a certain
cheapness level, which adds to the fun, such as someone shooting people with
his fingers as he makes a gun shape with his hand.
Playing
with convention and clichés is common by turning them on their heads, such as a
an electric eel being bitten by a radioactive human, which turns it into a
beautiful woman (mostly nekkid) fighting evil, including a cameo by action actor Bai Ling. Throughout, other cameos are the likes of Lloyd Kaufman and
Fred Olen Ray. I’m sure there are some that fans in Germany are going wow about, but I don’t know them.
There
are certainly more superheroes than there are letters, and some are way more
bizarre than others, such as MenstruGirl and Queen Osiris (interesting change of
gender for the Lord of the ancient Egyptian Underworld). There are a number of
different “leagues” here, including the First Fuck Force (Power Rangers), a
bunch of martial arts pandas that certainly must be (more) profane Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles (including a product commercial to mock the saleability of
hero toys), and one group of topless women which comprises one who is pregnant,
an older one who is “Bored Woman,” and a boy with a cat nose.
Each
short has a particular focus, such as a profane version of an “Alf”-like
television program, and sometimes weird combinations such as “Gerry Atricks vs.
Hitler’s Brain” and “Jesus Space Missionary vs. King Satan (Star Wars).
The
whole film, honestly, is just ridiculous, from the writing to the reading by
the actors. However, and this is important, it is more towards why it works rather than works against
it. When you’re dealing with pure insanity, sometimes it pays to go over the
top, and this one goes waaaaaaaaay over.
In fact, there was only one bit that didn’t work for me and was quite unsatisfying,
which was a The Terminator spoof
called “Rape Robot,” which is uncomfortable in so many different ways.
Another
important note is even with the different styles for each segment, because it
was directed by the same two people, there was a motif of consistency in feel throughout, defining this as a single piece in
different chapters, something that sometimes gets lost when a film is a compilation
of individual shorts by various directors. What’s also nice about this is that
it’s easy to have characters overlap and show up unexpectedly in different
stories.
 |
| Cool Jeebus |
The
film takes no prisoners. While no real animals are involved, we see the bloody
killing of men, women and children indiscriminately, as well as the elderly.
That being said, it’s also pretty even-handed when it comes to reflecting the
large Afro-German population, including a Black Jesus. This was brave.
There
are some nice extras, including a 35:56 Making Of featurette, which essentially
is the two directors talking individually and spliced together going back and
forth – in German (with subtitles). It’s actually quite interesting as they
take the viewer through the usual inception, writing, financing, shooting,
post-production, and showings. Rather than being dry, they both have an
enjoyable sense of humor and come across as nice guys. Other topics include
shooting anecdotes, how they got some of their cameos (there is a brief piece
by Uwe Boll, also speaking German), and they even address the female vs. (lack
of) male nudity.
Other
extras are the original trailer, some of the great Wild Eye collection, and part
of the “Hero Boy” segment (the one with Kaufman) at 4:31 which includes outtakes
inserted. The last are two short films by the directors individually: “Licht aus
Licht” (2012; 1:59, translated as “Light of Light”), which is similar in theme
to the infamous Swedish short from 2013, “Lights Out”; “T is for Testicle” (2011;
2:55) that was titled “Testicular Apocalypse” in the 2016 anthology film, World of Death. In this quickie, a man’s
testicles become sentient and escape while he’s watching some softcore film,
and he goes chasing after it. It’s both gross and humorous.
Sometimes
goofy fun is just what is needed in a world where superhero films just seem so
serious in its wider zeitgeist, rather than some snappy Ant-Man / Iron Man / Deadpool
quips within a gazillion dollar extravaganza. Like Badass Monster Killer (also 2015), the CGI was used for the good
and cheesy, and makes it all the better for its off-the-wall, see if any of it
sticks to the wall, WTF! G'wan, take a chance.
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