Part human. Part alien. Pure superpower.
The Guyver is the 1991 live-action adaptation of the Japanese manga Guyver, playing fast and loose with the original source material.
Ages ago, the alien race known as the Zoanoids created humanity on Earth to be the ultimate organic superweapon, imbuing within them genes that they could awaken to transform them into Zoanoid warriors. In the present day, the Chronos Corporation conducts genetic experiments on innocents to transform them into Zoanoids, while its CEO Fulton Balcus (David Cage) tries to figure out how to activate the control panel of a Zoanoid bio-suit called the Guyver unit. One of the scientists, Tetsuo Segawa escapes with the Guyver unit, which ends up in the hands of a teenager named Sean Baker (Sean Armstrong)—who combines with the suit, becoming the Guyver and fighting against the evil Chronos Corporation which now wants him dead with the help of Segawa's daughter and CIA agent Max Reed (Mark Hamill).
The film was co-directed by legendary gore SFX artist Screaming Mad George (who also handled the suits and animatronics) and produced by his partner Brian Yuzna (who previously collaborated on horror film Society), likely accounting for some of the rather startling violence and Body Horror in an otherwise comical, Power Rangers-esque film.
It was followed by a more faithful, R-rated sequel called Guyver: Dark Hero.
This film provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Max's boss offers Striker a job/is revealed to have been part of the Chronos conspiracy at the end of the movie. None of that gets any mention in the sequel.
- Achilles' Heel: The Guyver Unit's core, located in the forehead. Striking it causes the user intense pain and disorientation and removing it will cause the body to break down.
- Artistic License – Martial Arts: In his introduction scene, Sean is taking Aikido class while wearing socks, the only one in his class to do so. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of martial arts will tell you this is horribly impractical as bare feet provide better balance and grip to the floor, something that you cannot do while wearing socks, as you can easily slip.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Villainous version. When Lisker realizes Sean's vulnerability, he gloats "you do have a weakness" and proceeds to exploit it brutally.
- Bald of Evil: Played by Michael Berryman, there's not one hair on the brutal Lisker's head.
- Big Bad: Balcus is the master of Chronos Corporation and the chief villain of the film.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: The Guyver produces very, very sharp blades from the arms.
- Body Horror: Liberal applications: this is a Screaming Mad George film, and he takes many opportunities to show off his gruesome practical effects in tandem with Family-Unfriendly Violence. Max horribly and fatally degenerating into a Zoanoid
is probably the worst and most prolonged instance of this, and Balcus' "growth corridor" filled with the mutating, amorphous forms of half-developed Zoanoids isn't far behind. - Chest Burster: A heroic example. Lisker kills Sean while he's the Guyver by ripping the control medal from his forehead. Sean's body withers away and melts. However, it turns out the medallion still contains Sean's genetic code, and begins regrowing his body. When another Zoanoid (played by Jeffrey Combs) swallows it, it finishes regrowing Sean in his stomach, and Sean cuts his way free of the Mook's body fully grown.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Balcus, the Zoalord in disguise and CEO of Chronos Corporation (which seems to have no other stated goal aside from "take over the world").
- Covers Always Lie: From the old VHS and DVD covers, you would be led to believe that Mark Hamill's character becomes the Guyver. He doesn't.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Tons, with Sean carving enemies apart, cutting his way out of one Mad Scientist, and tearing open one villain's skull. Meanwhile, many people die in inhuman experimentation thanks to Balcus and Chronos.
- Curbstomp Battle: For the most part, the Zoanoids stand no chance against the Guyver who dispatches them with brutal ease. That said, Lisker consistently proves a challenge.
- The Dragon: Lisker.
- Elite Mook: This movie's version of Lisker (played by Michael Berryman) isn't a second Guyver, but even as a Zoanoid manages to be the only consistent threat outside the Big Bad himself.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: Several:
- Being transformed or not, nothing downplays the horror of Tetsuo Segawa having his skull gorily crushed on-screen in the first five minutes of the movie.
- Balcus' Quirky Miniboss Squad is rather graphically killed one after another throughout the film; Sean electrocutes them to death, cuts their necks open, cuts his way out of one of them after regenerating from the Guyver unit within him, and saves probably the most brutal for The Dragon: gutting him numerous times before ripping open his skull with his bare hands. The only one who survives is Striker.
- Faux Affably Evil: Balcus is pleasant and polite, but a sadistic monster under that.
- Karma Houdini: Stryker ends the film with no punishment whatsoever while averting Black Dude Dies First, escaping with the rest of Chronos's leadership after Balcus is dead.
- Large Ham: Try finding a single villain who doesn't ham it up beautifully. Special credit to David Gale as Balcus. "Come and get me!"
- Laughably Evil: Stryker rarely commits much by way of evil deeds and is a source of comic relief through the film.
- Ludicrous Gibs: The fate of Balcus, the Zoalords, is to be blasted by the Guyver's chest cannon and to explode into many, many bits.
- Mood Dissonance: The most common criticism of the movie is how confused it seems about its tone. It frequently swings between off-the-wall comedy, like an incompetent rapping Zoanoid, and the graphic violence and Body Horror the original manga's known for.
- One-Winged Angel: All the Zoanoids assume a monster form for combat. Balcus's, the Zoalord, is a gigantic, far stronger monster than any other.
- Shout-Out: Striker, played by Jimmie Walker, closes the film with the catchphrase of his character on Good Times: dino-mite!
- Totally Radical: Striker, one of Lisken's mooks, is an inept comic relief villain who likes to interject more suspenseful moments with spontaneous rapping.
- Transformation Horror: Sean's first transformation into the Guyver is fairly visceral with the Guyver unit ensnaring Sean's face facehugger style and literally combining with him, but the pinnacle is Max's death at the end of the film. Experimented on by Balcus' scientists to become a Zoanoid but not allowed to stabilize, Max horrifically degenerates into something vaguely resembling a cockroach and croaks minutes later from the stress of it.
- Wolverine Publicity: As stated in Covers Always Lie above, Mark Hamill is given top billing and his face is in the cover, despite playing a secondary character.
