Popeye´s Revenge

Right around Christmas of 1989 my dad fixed a completely new channel box home for our TV. This would give us the oppurtunity to watch a lot more TV channels we have not seen before such as Super Channel, The Children´s Channel, TV 1000, TV 3 and many more. This was at the time the most incredible Christmas weekend ever because we could actually watch a lot of movies on TV and not just the ordinary TV channels known as SVT 1 and SVT 2. It was the day after Christmas Eve we were watching Christmas movies on TV 3 and one of the films showing that i had not seen before was the 1980 musical comedy known as Popeye ( based on American cartoonist E.C. Segar´s character Popeye The Sailor Man ). I had seen several of Robbie Williams comedies over the years during the late 80´s and this was one of the few performances i still had not seen. Seeing comedian and legendary actor Robbie transform into Popeye The Sailor Man was actually quite fun. I had seen the Popeye cartoons back in the early 80´s on VHS at children birthday partys, but to see a live action adaptation that actually worked was a great surprise. This film is actually directed by legendary director Robert Altman ( director of the classic 1992 black comedy The Player with a brilliant performance by Tim Robbins, definetely worth picking up on DVD or blu ray ) and tell the story of Popeye, a gruff but good-hearted sailor, arrives at the smalll coastal town of Sweethaven while missing for his missing father. He rents a room at the Oyl family´s boarding house, where the Oyls plan to have their daughter, Olive ( Shelley Duvall ), be engaged to Captain Bluto ( Paul L. Smith ). The night of the engagement party, Olive sneak out and she encounter Popeye who she feels deeply connected to. This film is almost like a Bud Spencer and Terencee Hilll comedy where people fight but with a good sense of humour, silly dialogue and feels like a comic book adaptation. If you want to see Robbie Williams do a crazy performance than by a means pick up a physical copy of Popeye. So here we are in 2025 with 3 different Popeye The Sailor Man inspired horror films who have been released this year so far. I just decided to pick one of them and review the film and i ended up picking the title Popeye´s Revenge. Is this one of the films you should put on your watch list this late spring or is this even far worse than i ever could have imagined?

A group of councilors want to open up a haunted house attraction of the childhood home of Popeye ( Steven Murphy ), where he was locked inside the cellar of the house after killing a child. At first it seems like a good idea, until they found out Popeye still exist when the fog comes out around the forest. And he doesn´t want any new visitors near his childhood home.

Im a big fan of low buget horror and practical make up effects and i can accept a lot of flaws of a film that´s made on a limited budget. The only thing i really demand is that the film entertain me and have some fun practical effects included. In the case of Popeye´s Revenge this is a film that have a lot more flaws than positive to talk about. Let us talk about what i appreciate with this film and i have to say the kills are definetely the most fun parts of Popeye´s Revenge. We don´t get to see bodies being ripped apart but there are some bloody scenes ( that should have been even more violent ). There is especially a killing in a hot tub that´s one of the highlight killer scenes. Popeye played by actor Steven Murphy looks like a deformed hillbilly Vin Diesel as if he stepped out of an ecstasy party and never wanted to leave. I will say that in certain scenes i do feel Steven Murphy manage to make his character Popeye at least entertaining. We get to see some female nudity in here and that matches slasher films from the 70´s and 80´s well. Ok so let´s get into the negative and i have to be honest and say these are some of the most boring characters i have seen in a long time. You don´t care if anyone of them gets killed and there is no character development at all, except for Popeye who only seem to have a background story at least. The plot is just as thin as an episode of reality TV show The Housewives Of Orange County. Im not saying that a slasher film has to have a big plot but at least try to have some kind of story. The animated scenes in the beginning of this film at least gave us some interesting details regarding Popeye´s difficult childhood but that´s all we get. I think the design of Popeye could have been made better than what we get here, i would have liked to see him even more deformed and bigger arms. At the end of the day Popeye´s Revenge is a slasher horror film that will most likely forgotten. There is really not much to be pleased about and this should have been much more fun than what we get. Director William Stead may be a big fan of slasher films but this is just a lazy attempt to cash in on the horror audience.

Rating: DD