Joker Rising

It's an odd place, this here internet, and one of my favorite outpourings of that oddness is the phenomenon of the fan film.


D'you know what?  Some of them are really damn good.  But this might be a contender for a new favorite and that's saying something, because I went into it not expecting much.  It's a film about the joker.  A prequel, though not to any specific canon.

If you're a long term batman fan, you can still expect new life in this tale.  The filmmakers went their own route with this version of the Jokers famed multiple choice past.  This is simply one of many possible ways that once sane man began to slather on the makeup.

We start off with Cyrus.  The film doesn't attempt to mislead us on who will eventually turn into the joker, from the introduction onwards Cyrus seems a hairs breadth away to a snap in his sanity.  There's a chilling scene early on involving an impromptu game of russian roulette that hints at the darkness in Cyrus that will eventually be brought forward.

The film crafts its own continuity, recasting the Riddler into a pimp and the Penguin, here referred to almost constantly as Oswald, into a drug pusher, employing talented gunhand Cyrus as an enforcer.  Falling in love with one of Riddlers girls seems to improve his mental wellbeing, but we watch with mounting dread that very few prequels can muster.

We know where Cyrus is destined, what fills us with dread is the buildup to that fall.

Decent shoutout exist to all of the batman continuities (though admittedly, the dark knight dominates as the films central reference) but again, what makes it fascinating is that this doesn't take place in any one continuity, not some dark corner of the nolanverse.

Of course, the flaws of low budget filmmaking can't help but rear their heads with some sloppy special effects but if you can overlook them and you're a batman fan, you might be in for a surprising treat with this one.

You can watch Joker Rising for free here or pop over to their youtube page for more.

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