User reviews

Imagine an awe-inspiring vision of an inferno descending onto Earth, with machines and demons decimating the last vestiges of mankind. Such an apocalypse brought to life on the big screen could be something brooding and chilling. It could be epic.

This is not that movie.

Manborg is a cheap, silly, ridiculous little film, and it knows it. It has action, certainly, and plenty of gnarly bloodshed and gratuitous special effects. However, the delivery of the action, dialogue, and the overall story is so over-the-top, so silly, and so cheesy that it's hilarious. Most of the characters here sound like they came from a Mortal Kombat video game, thanks to the overdubbed dialogue. One character even tries to fight MK style. One lady fights like she came straight out of an anime, complete with cheap sound effects and streaky lines behind her. Most other special effects look like they came from the original Doom PC game, because they are that cheap. The film is short and pretty fast, but more importantly, it made me laugh pretty often.

The story for this is not an inherently bad idea: I kinda do wish somebody in Hollywood would make a big-scale apocalypse story like this, with the actual forces of Hell being unleashed on the planet (they totally blew it when they adapted Doom). If this same movie was handled with a big budget, big stars, and a distinguished director, it probably would have been awesome. If this movie was a video game instead, it would have been awesome as well. But as it is, the film plays things well within its limitations, keeping things purposefully small-scale and cheap, and simultaneously silly. There are scenes that reminded me a lot of other movies or games - The Terminator, Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, The Running Man, Fist of the North Star, and other stuff all came to mind. Regardless, the film is pretty fun, even if it lacks depth or originality.

This film is very cheaply shot and edited, with gaudy and weird special effects that looked like they came from the stone age. Acting is very silly and over-the-top, and with dubbed dialogue, it's rendered even more hilarious. Writing is very silly. This production uses some very cheap sets, props, and costumes. The music score tries so hard to be cool.

If you're looking for something awesomely cheesy and funny, this film will satisfy.

2.5/5 (Entertainment: Good | Story: Marginal | Film: Awful)

Manborg looked hilarious! The box art (although not as its IMDb poster) was enough to grab my attention immediately and it looked like I was on to a winner!

As an indie film director, and huge fan of grindhouse madness, I was so excited to get watching this.

Having sat the husband down for the night and promising him a good time, via Manborg, I found myself apologising after 20 minutes and turning the film off after struggling through another 15.

It was just too much!

I could see and understand where the film makers wanted to go with this, but to me, it just looked like they forgot to put the paintbrush down and continued touching things up more and more, until they had actually covered up the picture they had really wanted to show.

I'm glad it has done well though, I appreciate the work put in and look forward to seeing more from the team!

Manborg feels you're watching the cut scenes from a video game more than you're watching a movie. It's fun, but it feels like there was so much work put into something which inevitably ends up as a lark. Maybe I'm just a party pooper. Or maybe I like when movies are funny because they are just weird or foreign, versus the forced humor that comes when you make a parody or a genre already rife with unintended humor.

That said, this is a real CGI achievement — just watch the extras to see how much of the world was created for the film. Is it a good movie? Well, it's more like an 11-minute Adult Swim show played out for an hour. There's some goofy humor and some slap happy action. That said — going back to my eleven-year-old self, then my answer would be, "Yes, this movie is awesome."

"Manborg" is a delightfully dopey post-apocalypse flick, played with tongue firmly in cheek. The guys keeping cheesy Bs like these alive are the Canadian collective "Astron-6", who are also responsible for "Father's Day" and "The Editor". In the world of the future, humans have been fighting the armies of Hell for some time, and are losing the war, although some people refuse to give up the fight. Matthew Kennedy plays an unnamed soldier who dies during battle, and is reincarnated as the half-machine "Manborg". He hooks up with three other warriors: feisty Mina (Meredith Sweeney), Australian-accented chatterbox "Justice" (Conor Sweeney), and the truly hilarious # 1 Man (Ludwig Lee / voice of Kyle Hebert).

Although it's not meant to be taken seriously, one has to admire some of the actors for playing it straight, which is the right way to play this sort of material in the first place. The whole thing is a marvel of visual design; it often looks like a video game. It's been stylized to a great degree by director / producer / editor / effects artist / actor Steven Kostanski, and does have an agreeable sense of humour. One of the baddies is a goon named The Baron (Jeremy Gillespie), who pines after the adorably cute Mina.

There's not a particularly big story to tell here, but that's not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to make the movie clock in at barely over an hour. (On the DVD, a promo for an Astron-6 short called "Bio Cop", and a priceless spoof of those FBI warnings on tapes and discs, helps add to the running time.)

The biggest laughs come from Hebert, a riot as the voice of # 1 Man. Adam Brooks (as the primary villain Count Draculon, and the scientist Dr. Scorpius), and Andrea Karr (as a hench woman named Shadow Mega), co-star, and they, like everybody else, play this for everything that it's worth.

The ending is rather abrupt, but in a mindless, gory, funny little diversion like this, that's not such a big issue.

Filmed in my hometown!

Seven out of 10.

In the all-too bleak future, mankind has been defeated by the armies of hell. Now, the eeevil Draculon (Adam Brooks) and his malevolent minions rule from a hideous fortress-city.

Enter MANBORG (Matthew Kennedy), a cybernetic being, constructed from a soldier and various spare parts. With help from #1 Man (Ludwig Lee), Justice (Conor Sweeney), and his sister, Mina (Meredith Sweeney), MANBORG seeks to destroy Draculon and all he stands for.

Dark, ultra-gory, and absolutely hilarious, this movie takes its low-low-budgeted absurdity seriously, making what could / should have been an abysmal failure into a brilliant spectacle of intentional idiocy! From the Mina-smitten Baron (Jeremy Gillespie), to the Dr. Strangelove-inspired, Dr. Scorpius (Brooks again), and just about every other character / demon / monster / etc., this is insane moviemaking done right!

FAVORITE SCENES: #1- The gladiatorial matches! #2- Any scene with the Baron! #3- Justice and #1 Man making macaroni and cheese! #4- The fabulously fun-tastic, gut-unraveling, skull-exploding final conflict!

Is this movie an homage? Parody? Homarody? Hmmm.

P.S.- Be sure to stick around after the credits for the COMING ATTRACTIONS!...

If you are a fan of B-movies, specially the action ones, you should definitely watch this. The "homage" to bad movies is impressive. The animations, the voice acting, the characters... You will definitely feel the nostalgia if you are a fan of the genre.

However, I can't give this a good grade, simply because it is just not a good movie at all. A truly good film would appeal to a bigger audience and mock the genre at the same time. The movie was just too campy.

I would just recommend waiting for someone to make a compilation of the best scenes and watch it online. There is no point in watching the whole thing, it becomes tiresome very quick.

The horror/cult revelation of the still very young new decade is undoubtedly Astron-6. This outrageous five-headed coalition (Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Connor Sweeney, Matthew Kennedy and Steven Kostanski) accomplished their modest breakthrough in 2011 with no less than two long feature films that appeal to the craziest of horror fans around the globe, namely the superb "Father's Day" and this demented little thing named "Manborg". I can only describe "Manborg" as a totally absurd and bizarrely creative throwback to the era of primitive video games, grotesque Science-Fiction blockbusters of the 80's and early 90's and the result of a bunch of weirdos brainstorming crazy ideas. The set pieces and decors of "Manborg" intentionally look terribly cheap and amateurish, the acting performances are deliberately and over-the-top inept and the special effects & make-up qualify as hilarious camp. The story is slightly less "all over the place" as the case in "Father's Day", but still very incoherent and chaotic. In a (distant?) future, the last remaining humans are at war against demons, zombies, vampires and a whole lot of other monstrous species from the underground. One soldier, who died at the battlefield, wakes up again in a laboratory, rebuilt as a cyborg and still in captivity of the horrendous demonic leader Draculon. Together with three other humanoid survivors (two crazed siblings and one deliciously bad-dubbed Asian martial arts hero) Manborg is forced to fight as a gladiator in a futuristic arena, but they are skilled and headstrong enough to revolt against their enemies. This is the ideal entertainment to watch at a Film Festival; together with a chock-full theater of equally avid and enthusiast freaks. The crowd literally goes wild upon being exposed to such a massive amount of gore, camp, deliberate incompetence, craziness and smut! The sound and light effects catapult you straight back to the days when you were playing "Space Invaders" on a prehistoric thick green-screen computer and the awful English dubbing of the #1 man character caused the entire audience to laugh out loud every single he opened his mouth. The screenplay is stuffed with tiny imaginative details, tongue-in-cheek references and lovely gimmicks. The design of the demons and garden variety of other creatures is quite phenomenal and they could actually qualify as genuinely horrific if used in a less light-headed scenario. Doctor Scorpius, for instance, is a much scarier looking villain than all the creeps in big budgeted blockbusters. This shouldn't come too much as a surprise, since most of the Astron-6 members have a background in special effects and/or animation. "Manborg" is marvelous and warmly recommended cult entertainment, if you have a bizarre sense of humor and a good sense of tastelessness, of course.

Unfortunately IMDb doesn't allow for negative ratings otherwise this piece of excrement would have received -10.

I love my horrors from corn factor comedy rip-off's to seriously dark. This should never have been released. The human race is poorer for it's existence. I would also like the cast/production crew(if you can indeed call them that) and friends of the parties involved to know that it is sad to get your friends to up vote what is obviously a "Z" rated movie.

This movie is a disgrace to the genre and is the reason why it has been given such a bad reputation.

May your career in the movie industry be very short lived.

This film has a quality which allows you to transcend the usual role of audience, and makes you feel like you are with friends, albeit very weird (possibly deranged) friends who have a green screen. Based on those brilliant b-movies of our childhood, Manborg follows the adventures of a group of misfits who are valiantly fighting off the Nazi-vampire hordes from hell. With the likes of Number One Man and Justice on the team, there is never a dull moment. It had me on the edge of my seat throughout, and left me hungry for more. Expect excitement, chaos, unrequited love, science, stop-motion monsters, hover boards and so much more. It is funny, it's fantastic, it is gory and it is glorious. Possibly not for the feint of heart, but definitely one I would recommend (and have been). It's never too late... To be a hero.

Knocked unconscious in battle, a young soldier wakes up to discover that he has been turned into a cyborg capable of fighting the (literal) demons of hell in this affectionate homage to the sci-fi themed action movies of the 1980s. The film owes a particular debt to 'RoboCop', but the movie brings a lot of humour of its own beyond spoofing the likes of 'The Terminator' with a particularly funny running gag involving a lovesick baddie with artificial eyes. Creative as 'Manborg' is, it is certainly not a film for all tastes. The deliberately shoddy green screen special effects take time to get used too; same goes for the intentionally over-the-top dubbing of an Asian man and the stop motion monster effects. It is really quite a magnificent achievement though when one considers its parodying of 80s cheese; the film even opens like a VHS tape and has a comical copyright warning at the end that is worth sitting through. There is even an awesome trailer for the most over-the-top cop film ever after the end credits roll. None of this ingenuity can quite make up for the loose character development and thin plotting of the actual film, but this is not the type of movie that one really watches for something deep and meaningful. It is a fun tribute to the films of yesterday and a surprisingly thrilling one at that with some well crafted action sequences when one gets over the cheesy special effects.

How does one say "ridiculously bad" in more ways than one? I can't think of it. I looked at it because it was supposed to be rated 5.5 and my brain was permanently injured from the attempt.

If you look at the ratings, most were 10's. Those were obviously from the cast, crew and family of the producers. An almost equal number gave it the honest review of 1. That is how it ended up with a 5.5 rating.

It was a train wreck of poorly done green screens, childish dialog, poor audio and fake monster masks. I wouldn't have been impressed if middle school children had come up with this mess. Please do not subject your brain to this unnatural punishment.

I can not honestly think of anything that I disliked about this movie. Right from the beginning it had me in hysterics and continued to keep me in a state of laughter for the full hour run time. What makes this film so funny is not necessarily the jokes (the case with comedies), but is in fact because the acting, voice acting, storyline, animations etc are so purposely bad that it's easily clear they are making fun of their own film. And with this, you end up laughing like a hyena for the entire duration. It's clear that the writers of this film knew exactly what made old bad sci-fi films so bad and used this knowledge to create a genius script. In conclusion,If you were a fan of the old bad sci-fi films... You'll love this

If you are a fan of films which really aren't serious... You'll love this

If you are a human with a beating heart...You'll love this

This is a "B" movie all the way. It is crazy and looks like it was done as a university project. I really enjoyed it. There is little gore, little money spent on effects ( there had better not have been as the effects were laughable) There was a lot of very imaginative stop motion and fun work with blue screen, every thing about this movie was cheese! not blue cheese as it did not stink, it is just... home made like. Lots of fun for non movie snobs who like movies that have no right being appealing but are. This is one of those. you can not help but to like it. Effects are about a 2 acting about a 2 but because it is done on purpose and is like a living cartoon I would bump that to 7. This movie is over the top and silly, everyone seems to be having a good time.

I had expected this to be low budget, sure, but I was nowhere prepared for the atrocity that this movie turned out to be. The movie was made in 2011, but it had a very 1980s touch to it, with special effects from the 1970s. It was such an abominable eyesore to witness.

This movie is hopefully a spoof on other low budget movies, because it like like one big massive farce. If it wasn't, then I don't even know where to start.

The story in this movie was as to be expected. Earth is at war with Hell. Yes! Hell! And Earth is losing. A soldier is brought back to life as a cyborg in the future to help mankind battle the forces of Hell.

The effects were so horribly bad that you constantly sit there laughing and shaking your head in disbelief. Oddly enough, the level of badness just keeps you wanting to see more. I stuck with this movie to the end just to see how much more worse things could be. I think around 90% of the movie was filmed in front of a green screen.

The characters in the movie were just as bad as the effects. They looked like a mixture of pre-Mortal Kombat and a rockshow gone bad. The manborg looked like something dished up in an arts and crafts class. #1 man was a poor Liu Kang clone, and his awful dubbed speech was equally bad. The Justice character looked like Billy Idol after having lost his fame and fortune. However, what the movie had working for it was the Nazi-like demonic creatures. There were some pretty good make-up and designs here.

As for the dialogue, well lets just say it matched the rest of the movie. Enough said.

It should be said that everything is just so bad on every level, that the movie is actually worth sticking around for to the very end. There are worse movies available, but "Manborg" does a great job at trying to get to the top ten list of worst movies ever.

It doesn't try to be anything but what it is which is a high cheese fun movie to watch.

There no i am a serious actor doing Shakespeare moments where you can see the others actors wincing and thinking pay me so i can get away from this guy.

It was friends making a low budget movie that entertaining to watch.

Jeremy Gillespie had a surprisingly good sense of comedic timing as the love struck baron.

Think low budget,decent affects but not industrially lights and magic and people who enjoy what they are doing.

Seriously this is miles ahead of rob zombie's movies and had budgets and big name actors. Sorry Rob but to his credit he has gotten better.

A few kids in a basement? Is this the people who made this movie? This show makes Terminator (one) look STATE OF THE ART! I can not believe anyone would waste their time with this trash. This would only be interesting if it the theme on MST3K!!! I see why there are shootings in movie theaters with movies like this! Was their budget around $500.00 (including the cost for a pizza lunch)??? If this was made back in the 60's it still would look like crap! I wouldn't give it a single point of a single star! And this review is coming from a person who loves the movie DARK STAR and enjoyed HYPERDRIVE while it was still on!!! If you are very tired and want to fall asleep or are waked out of your head on mind altering drugs, this movie is for you. Otherwise I would pass on this one! OUT-A-HERE!

P.S. I wanted to add this. Have you have seen acting and special effects on the 3DO system in the 1990's? Well, they are actually better than the ones in this movie.

Yes, it's very obvious that this movie didn't have a budget to work with. But it's not really a problem in this case. I thought it was enjoyable, more in a satirical way than how I'd enjoy a normal action film.

This is a perfect example of a work too cringe even for Adult Swim to air. It's like Kung Fury, with none of the effort, talent, or homage to the very same things this was trying (I think) to be a spoof of.

If you are like me, and you're a fan of action movies, video games like Mortal Kombat, and movies in the vain of those churned out by Troma, then you need to see this film immediately as it is an ode to 80s brilliance and is utterly brilliant itself - if you remember a time when movies were fun, where you cheered at the screen, munched on popcorn and didn't have to worry about jaded pseudo-film critic friends making snide commentaries in an attempt to ruin your enjoyment; when you just enjoyed fun for fun's sake, then this movie is for you. If you love Cyborgs, laughs and excitement, this movie is not to be missed. I'll leave the rest up to you, pick up a copy & defy Draculon today! You can thank me later. And don't forget to scream Manborg at the top of your lungs.

Manborg threw me for a loop. I had no idea what I was in store for. But the awesome cover art made me buy it right away. For a low budget film, it's pretty funny and well put together. Those guys at Astron 6 really know what they're doing. My only problem with it was at times it felt forced. Had they played the entire film straight I may have enjoyed it more. It also lagged a bit in the middle. The stop motion and synth score were is excellent, and that was my favorite part about this movie. The green screen fx look pretty bad, but it kinda adds to the charm. As someone who grew up with id CHS movies as a kid, I could tell were their influences came from.A fun film to each with some buddies at a party for sure (Double feature with Miami Connection?). Overall a good watch for sure.

While trying to be a charming homage to the cheesy scifi straight-to-video of the 80's, this sad mess of a film is just embarrassing. It seems everybody were to busy making everything look and sound bad to actually ask what made the cheesy B-movies from the 80's charming. Could it be that back then they didn't actually try to make things badly?

Once upon a time, films with heavy red titles, bad electronic music, and zany special effects were all the rage. These would appear on VHS Video in the early 80's,they were totally entertaining, usually made on a shoestring budget,usually badly dubbed and had bad one liners galore. Back to the present day,we have big budgets, we have the technology, but do we still have the imagination? Manborg certainly does! This is a wild,wacky, weird,zany trip back to these days where the only thing that mattered was killing as many pizza faced baddies as you could whilst spouting bad one liners! It's not big budget, but hey, it doesn't have to be, it's non stop mayhem with many laugh out loud moments! Matthew Kennedy is brilliant as Manborg ( "i am Manborg"),Adam Brooks as the ace baddie Count Draculon,for me steals the show..closely followed by "number one man"(Ludwig Lee complete with classic bad dubbing!) This is either "hate it" or "love it" territory...i loved it!!

Some reviews here just irritate me. Did they even watch the same film I did? Or are they too dense to get it? This film is made by and for people who love bad cinema. It is suppose to be cheezy! It is supposed to have overacting! It is like a blazing inferno of rapid fire sight gags and actions scenes rolled in one huge enchilada! I love this film. It is an action-packed love letter to the Drive In movies of yesterday. It cost about 12 bucks and it shows, but it has tons of imagination, heart and passion.

Manborg is basically a series of cool fight scenes all held together by bad special effects scenes and insane dialog. To say more would ruin the fun. The costumes are awesome, the green screen can be awful, the gore splashes all over and there are so many inspired moments to find that they could invent a "Name that bad 80's Post-Apocalyptic Movie" drinking game, but damn it sure was a fun ride.

Kick back, throw some brews down your throat, grab some friends and relive the awesome 80s with Manborg!

Should have known better, but just look at the poster! 2 stars is for the poster alone and 1 star for the thought and effort. Had Jason Eisener directed this, it probably would have ruled, and thats more the feel I was hoping for... or Kung Fury

This movie is just bad, I hate to say it, but basically unwatchable.

Enjoy the artwork, but save your time.

If there is one thing that is to be said about MANBORG is that even if you did not like what you saw, you sure as hell respect how Steve Kostanski and the crew pulled it off.

Growing up in the days of wandering mom and pop VHS rental stores, in search of that one piece of cover-art that showed a promise. Not just any promise, a promise that you were about to spend your hard earned allowance on something exciting, and something you most likely have never seen before!

The promise that MANBORG makes is that you will re-live those exciting days. It's got great cover-art and a premise that seems so familiar, yet you want to see it anyways!

The acting is bad, in a great way, and the stop animation is a definite throwback to days before CGI was used for EVERY DAMN THING YOU SAW...... The movie really holds good on its promise of providing a good time with family and friends. So without hesitation PICK UP A COPY when it comes available for purchase, or SUPPORT THE EFFORTS and see it in it's limited theatrical screenings.