Underworld

Clive Barker’s screenwriting debut. Larry Lamb plays Roy Bain, a retired enforcer recruited by a mob boss, to find a missing high-class prostitute. His investigation uncovers a group of mutants living in the London Underground.

Aside from some snappy early dialog when a pair of hoods come to collect Bain, and the thematic similarities to Barker’s later Nightbreed, the film has little to recommend it. Steven Berkoff delivers the lone credible performance as the mob boss who brings in Bain. Top-billed Denholm Elliott plays the mad scientist responsible for the mutants. Said mutants are addicts hooked on Elliott’s mind-expanding drug. Lamb shows flashes of charisma, but I struggled with the costumer’s decision to tuck his pants into a pair of cavalier boots. The finale devolves into an uzi-fueled shoot-‘em-up more preposterous than the mutants.

The print streaming on Amazon is high definition but cropped aside from the pan-and-scan credits.