Jeffrey Combs has had a varied and active career, but you’re more likely to see him on set of a horror film than anything else. His career really took off when he turned the boards as Herbert West in cult classic Re-animator and its two sequels. Other film credits include films such as The Frighteners (1996), House on haunted Hill (1999) and I know what you did last summer (1998) to name a handful of more successful films. But Combs was more than willing to take a chance at smaller budgeted roles too, starring in crazy films such as From Beyond, Cellar Dweller and The Guyver.

He also has roots firmly in Science Fiction, Starring in a first season episode of Babylon 5, and a larger role in the short-lived series The 4400 in 2006. Combs enjoyed a long success in the Star Trek TV series, playing nine different characters over the shows run time.
It was a Science Fiction film that almost got Combs a role as in a marvel movie adaption, as It was in 1992 that he almost starred as the wizard supreme, in a film adaption of Doctor Strange.

Charles Band was celebrating some success with his new horror/sci-fi company Full Moon Entertainment. With the puppet master, Trancers and a handful of other low brow titles under their belt, Band managed to negotiate an option for marvel’s more obscure title of Doctor Strange.

In the early 1990s, the much-loved Marvel movie universe was a decade away, and marvel were just happy making pocket change off its movie adaptions, selling big named movie deals for low hundreds of thousands. B movie specialist Roger Gorman was currently producing the now infamous fantastic four film, and precious Doctor Strange film attempts ended with a straight to TV number that failed to get anyone’s attention. Marvels was not exactly handling their assists with due diligence. So it was that Charles Band picked up the film rights for a song.

Unfortunate for the Charles brothers, and his Father Albert who joined him as a producer, they spent too long agonising over the films pre-production. Just as the project was due to start filming the Doctor Strange option expired. You have to admire Charles and Alberts resolve, as they chose to push on rather than ditch the project. The script was rewritten to include original characters not directly adapted from the Doctor Strange comic property. In other words….they changed a few names and locations. The film was restructured and Doctor Strange become Doctor Mordrid: Master of the Unknown!

Starring Jeffrey Combs as Doctor Mordrid, the story is an incredibly simply affair, following the good doctor as he battles an evil wizard called Kabal. Kabal is after several mystical items to help him open a hell gate, and let the evil minion’s take over the earth. The Doctor is a wizard/sorcerer from another realm who lives on earth as a criminal psychologist, occult historian, and chronicler of the dark arts. When Kabal arrives, Mordrid must fight to save mankind, using all his skills as a Wizard. Combs is perfectly cast and even pulls off a fun, if not too overly serious performance.

The film was classically Full Moon Entertainment, with music by (the other Band brother) Richard Band and impressive special effects courtesy of David Allen, with a touch of Charles Brand crazy style thrown in for good measure. Despite its low budget, Full moon managed to put every penny to good use. Their creative and innovative ideas are what put them on the market, differentiating them from other low budget film companies.

Whilst the film was never going to win Oscars, even if it had been made as Doctor Strange, you can’t help but wonder if they film would have had a different reception. No one had heard of Doctor Mordrid, but as successful comic book character, Strange certainly would have sold more copies.

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“Morti” The Mortician