''Manborg'' is a 2011 Canadian

science-fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

action film Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include l ...

, directed by Steven Kostanski, and released by Astron-6.

Plot

Count Draculon (Adam Brooks) and his Nazi vampire forces seek to take over Earth during the Hell Wars. A soldier (Matthew Kennedy) is killed attempting to fight the Count, then transformed into Manborg after his body is fitted with robotics. After Manborg becomes active in Mega-Death City, he meets with resistance fighters against Count Draculon. Justice (Conor Sweeney) is a gunfighter who resembles

Billy Idol William Michael Albert Broad (born 30 November 1955), known professionally as Billy Idol, is a British-American singer, songwriter, and musician. He first achieved fame in the 1970s emerging from the London punk rock scene as the lead singer o ...

with an "Australian" accent who is joined by his sister Mina (Meredith Sweeney) and martial arts expert #1 Man (Ludwig Lee, voice-dubbed by

Kyle Hebert Kyle Henry Hebert ( ) is an American voice actor and DJ who works for anime and video game series, such as the teenage/adult Gohan and the narrator in the Funimation dub of the ''Dragon Ball series'', Sōsuke Aizen in ''Bleach'', Ryu in the ...

Cast

* Matthew Kennedy as Manborg * Adam Brooks as Count Draculon and Dr Scorpious * Meredith Sweeney as Mina * Conor Sweeney as Justice * Ludwig Lee as #1 Man (voice dubbed by

) * Jeremy Gillespie as The Baron * Andrea Karr as Shadow Mega * Mike Kostanski as Little Guy

Production

Production began in 2009 (with most of it shot in the garage of the director Steven Kostanski), with approximately one year of filming followed by two years of post-production.

Chroma key Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to ...

backdrops were used for most filmed scenes. Production costs were approximately $1,000 (CAD). In an interview with Monsterpictures.com Steve Kostanski said a lot of the movie was shot in his parents' garage. The costumes for the film were made of garbage and oftentimes he would glue them back together during production. Most of the set pieces were built with scraps the team found in dumpsters. Steve was also quoted saying a lot of their props are "cannibalized" and reused in other scenes.

Release

The first public screening of ''Manborg'' was on 22 September 2011 at

Fantastic Fest Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse, Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, and Tim McCanlies, writer of ''The Iron Giant'' and ''Secondhand ...

in Austin, Texas. It was then released on DVD on 11 Feb 2013.

Reception

Rick Groen of ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'' took a favorable view of ''Manborg'', declaring it "cheap and cheesy, no doubt, but with some real tang and, occasionally, a strong bite". The ''Toronto Stars Peter Howell deemed the film "a marvel of DIY makeup, costuming and special effects" although he believed the production "would have been a much better movie without the cheese".

References

External links

* * 2011 films Films shot in Winnipeg 2011 science fiction action films Nazi zombie films Canadian science fiction action films Demons in film Canadian post-apocalyptic films English-language Canadian films Canadian films about revenge 2010s exploitation films 2010s English-language films 2010s Canadian films {{2010s-Canada-film-stub