Underworld (1985) **1/2

George Pavlou's first two (of three) feature films were based on Clive Barker screenplays. While Rawhead Rex (1986) (review) (the second of those two) is a better film overall, 1985's Underworld, though deeply flawed, is an interesting precursor to Barker's Nightbreed (1990) (review). Jacob Knight aptly stated in his review of UW that it's "the L.A. Takedown (1989 (review) to Nightbreed's Heat (1995) (review)," exploring a lot of the same territory. This neon-drenched neo-noir, released in the U.S. in a longer version known as Transmutations (which is included on the Blu-ray copy of Kino Lorber's 4K UHD release that I picked up, so I'll have to watch that next time), was not what I expected based on the poster (thanks Charles Band). Admittedly, it's uneven, underdeveloped, and not terribly exciting, but it's visually quite striking (particularly for a clearly low budget effort) and has a cool new wave synth-pop score by Fruer.