The story begins when a top politician disappears during what is presumed to be a freak drowning. (The location and setting is kept purposefully vague so as to enhance the film's appeal to a world market.) This pivotal event poses a possible career boost for Senator Rast, played by David Hemmings of Blow Up (1966) fame. Rast is a career politician married to Sandra, a young trophy wife (Carmen Duncan) whose ailing nine-year-old son, Alex (Mark Spain), is dying of leukemia. Rast is so busy that he's late for Alex's birthday party and, after all, as Sandra later notes, this is no surprise given how much Rast "believes in votes..It's his only passion." And so, the feeble Alex is left to be consoled by the party clown, a particularly adept magician that will soon ingrain himself into the family as both a faith-healer, a confidant, a security-risk, and more. The magic-man is Gregory Wolfe (played by the Hemmings recommended English actor, Robert Powell, who did his own magic stunts) and he makes his second grand entrance in strange garb just as Alex seems to be nodding off toward the big sleep. Wolfe snaps him to attention and even, to his parents' amazement, gets him standing back up on his feet.
Released in Australia and other territories as Harlequin, the film was actually shot under the working title of The Minister's Magician, and it is this first title that rings truest to the original inspiration of the film meant to blend a modern telling of the Rasputin legend (an influence that informs some of Gregory's strange clothing options) with an actual happening in Australia during the seventies when a prime minister mysteriously disappeared when he went diving off a nearby coast. The film keeps its sympathies close to its chest and keeps the viewer guessing as to whether Gregory is a malevolent or benevolent influence, and even when Gregory shows up at a big political soiree dressed up like the lead singer of Queen only to amaze everyone by producing a pigeon out of thin air and then slice it in half with a spinning cymbal (also produced out of thin air), it's still hard to figure out whether he's some kind of space-age prophet or a garden variety anti-Christ. As a shroud of Turin-like stain on the kitchen floor grows to show Gregory's face, the mood is kept appropriately ambivalent - especially if one tunes out the overzealous musical score composed and conducted by Brian May (who also worked on the first two Mad Max films).
The Elite Entertainment release of Dark Forces presents the film in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and includes a trailer gallery for a handful of other films, most of which are linked to producer Antony I. Ginnane. Clips include the sci-fi, man-in-a-rubber suit film Syngenor, the interesting Strange Behavior, the decent vampire film that also co-stars Hemming and Powell, Thirst, and a clip for Patrick, the psychic quadriplegic killer who wreaks havoc in a hospital. It's all capped off with a trailer for Dark Forces itself. Also on the dvd are a behind-the-scenes photo gallery, filmographies, an isolated music score, and a commentary track with both director Simon Wincer and producer Antony I. Ginnane.
For more information about Dark Forces, visit Elite Entertainment.
by Pablo Kjolseth
