Much like the evil professor himself, The Morlock saga refused to die quietly. Jesse Merlin swore over and over again that he was through with the role until his old nemesis, the Internal Revenue Service, swept in with the announcement that Merlin had paid no federal income tax since 1998. In a desperate effort to avoid a prison sentence, he signed on to a reboot of the series.
Resurrection would once again bring the Morlock saga back to its roots in a script written by the son of series creator Jeebus Burbano, who had finally passed away in the summer of 2014 after suffering through an agonizing case of syphilis for the past decade. Instead of the CGI-laden explosion showcase of the previous entry Professor Morlock: Armageddon, Burbano, Jr. conceived a character-driven chillfest in which Morlock would once again return to earth from hell to carry out his evil plot to rule the world by transplanting the brain of a gorilla into a beautiful girl. The budget for the latest entry was slashed to the bone, with most of it being paid directly to the IRS to keep Merlin out of debtors prison.
Since all of the original cast were either dead or more up-to-date on paying their taxes than Merlin, every actor approached to return turned down the offer flat. This allowed the producers to reimagine the series with a completely new set of dramatis personae, with the only bridge from the old to the new being Merlin and the increasingly graphic kinky sex and nudity which had become a staple of the Morlock films from the beginning. This would be the first film in the series since The Bride of Professor Morlock in which Amy Ball didn't appear as the professor's nemesis Amanda Globe, the character having been written out of the script with a brief scene explaining that she had returned to the alien planet on which she had developed super powers. Instead, the plot focused on Amanda's niece Anita Softwood (played by newcome Lacie Harmon, Miss Nude USA of 2013), whom Morlock enslaves in order to take revenge on his longtime foe. But instead of resisting the professor's powers like her sassy aunt, Anita falls in love with Morlock and vows to do anything to help him in his plan to dominate earth. With the death of veteran character actor Tom Ackerman from a reefer overdose, Morlock's evil henchman Ruprecht was also cast aside so the professor was assisted by an emissary from hell named Mr. Scratch, played by emerging teen heartthrob Graham Skipper.
The studio is said to be releasing Resurrection with caution, concerned that interest in the series has petered out and that Merlin is largely regarded a has-been with a plummeting Q-rating. Die-hard Morlockians will doubtless disagree and hope that this summer's release will resurrect not only the character, but interest in the franchise as a whole.
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