David Cronenberg's Masked Rider

Remember the early 90’s sentai boom in America when Saban force fed us Frankenstein-like mashups in the form of VR Troopers, Super Human Samurai Cyber Squad, Big Bad Beatleborgs, and countless other dreck? The Power Rangers stood as the undisputed king of Slag Mountain and at the time I thought Masked Rider was at the bottom of the swamp.

Years later I stand corrected! The Modern Masked Rider’s villains look like they’ve stepped out of a stained glass nightmare and the heroes are equally wicked. Check out this transformation scene from 1992’s direct to video movie, Shin Kamen Rider Prologue.



The special effects team used six model heads over the course of the twenty-stage transformation. Scenes like this give a new meaning to the term tokusatsu. Given how CG in Japanese films is never short of embarrassing, I wish they would go back to their roots and do what they do best: Guys in rubber suits causing carnage!