In 1997, the Roger Corman Presents series on Showtime gave us this sequel to 1995’s Black Scorpion, once again written by Craig J. Nevius and directed by Jonathan Winfrey. Joan Severance returns in the lead role as Darcy Walker aka the Black Scorpion. Also returning are Stephen Lee as the not-very-competent police Captain Strickland, Garrett Morgan as Argyle, who’s responsible for the Black Scorpion’s high-tech car, and Terri J. Vaughn as Veronica, the former prostitute formerly known as Tender Lovin’, whom Darcy befriended in the first film.

But one glaring omission is Bruce Abbott, who played Darcy’s partner and love interest, Michael Russo, in the first film. He doesn’t return, and his character isn’t even mentioned, which makes the ending of the first film, where Darcy wiped his memory of her secret identity to keep him from moving away, seem pointless. Instead, Darcy has a new partner named Rick, played by Whip Hubley. And she attempts to pursue a romantic relationship with him (Darcy seems to have a habit of falling for the men she works with). It feels like that role was originally written to be Michael, but when they couldn’t get Abbott back for whatever reason they just changed the name and made it a new character.

Anyway, I’m going to say that overall I think this film is a little better than the first one. This is due to the fact that this time they seem to know exactly what kind of film they want this to me, this is a full-on campy action movie. It’s a superhero film that doesn’t take itself too seriously. And this time the Black Scorpion takes on two costumed supervillains, starting with the Gangster Prankster.

Played by Stoney Jackson, this character is basically a riff on The Joker, and his portrayal owes more to Cesar Romero than Heath Ledger. He’s got his henchmen Grimace and Heckler (Carl Banks and David Harris) and a henchwoman named Giggles (played by the Late Jeannie Millar).

Prankster and his gang have been committing a series of robberies and Black Scorpion tracks them to their funhouse-themed headquarters and captures them. This happens early in the film.

The second supervillain is Aftershock.

Played by Sherri Rose, she’s Professor Ursula Undershaft, who’s working on a machine that can predict and then prevent earthquakes (Angel City has been experiencing a series of small ones lately). That sounds like a great thing, right? Well, the problem is that Angel City’s new corrupt Mayor, Artie Worth (Matt Roe), doesn’t want her to stop the earthquakes because he’s been embezzling the federal relief money that the city gets for them. So he has his goons sabotage her machine, which creates a very large earthquake, in which Prof. Undershaft is presumably killed. The Mayor then blames her for everything, claiming she was intentionally planning to create earthquakes all along, destroying her reputation. In the wake of this, she dons a costume and uses some weapons devised from her machine to create powerful sonic blasts, and prepares to get revenge on the mayor, even if it means destroying Angel City.

Eventually, after running afoul of The Black Scorpion herself, Aftershock breaks Gangster Prankster and his henchmen out of jail, and convinces him to team up with her to get revenge on The Black Scorpion.

I won’t spoil all the details, but it’s probably not a surprise for me to reveal that Black Scorpion is triumphant in the end, defeating both villains and exposing the corruption of Mayor Worth. THE END.

Again, this film is the better of the two, as it knows what it is and doesn’t pretend to be anything more. Stoney Jackson in particular really seems to enjoy hamming it up as the Gangster Prankster, while Sherrie Rose shows impressive range going from shy innocent professor to the confident evil villain. Garrett Morgan was a delight again as Argyle, although his role was a little reduced this time. That man really should have had a much larger acting career.  I also single out Laura Harring for her small but significant role as Mayor Worth’s secretary and mistress Babette. Their scenes together are funny. Whip Hubley does an okay job although, as I said, it feels like he’s just playing a stand-in for Bruce Abbott.

However, once again I have to say that the biggest weak spot is Joan Severance.

She’s a sexy woman and a decent actress but just never feels quite right in this role. That’s especially since this film tones down the sexiness, there are no sex scenes and very little nudity (Jeannie Millar briefly shows her bare breasts in one scene, that’s it). If this film had presented itself as a softcore film, like Bikini Avengers or Zorrita, Severance would have probably been a better fit. Still, a good effort was made by all.

Chacebook rating: THREE AND A HALF STARS

Jason Majercik is selling this R-RATED DVD for $19.99. Email him at quinn_nash@hotmail.com for his softcore inventory list