Igor is a 2008 computer-animated horror comedy film directed by Tony Leondis from a screenplay by Chris McKenna. Igor, developed and produced by Max Howard with the California-based Exodus Film Group, was the first feature-length animated film to be financed with private equity. The animation was completed at France's Sparx Animation Studios and a facility in Vietnam. It was distributed in North America by MGM Distribution Co. and internationally by The Weinstein Company. It is MGM's first fully computer-animated film as well as the studio's first animated film in twelve years following 1996's All Dogs Go to Heaven 2.
Igor stars John Cusack, Steve Buscemi, Jay Leno, Eddie Izzard, Sean Hayes, Arsenio Hall, Jennifer Coolidge, John Cleese, Molly Shannon, and Christian Slater. Conceived by McKenna as a twisting of evil scientist film tropes, Igor features Cusack as the titular Igor, who lives in the kingdom of Malaria where others of his kind serve as assistants to evil scientists. In trying to achieve his dream to become an evil scientist, Igor accidentally creates a sweet female monster named Eva.
Igor's first teaser trailer premiered at the 2008 New York Comic-Con before being released online on May 7, 2008. Promoted with a video game, toys, books, comic books, and fast-food tie-ins, Igor premiered at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre on September 13, 2008, before starting its American nationwide theatrical run five days later. The film received mixed reviews from film critics and grossed $30.7 million worldwide on a $25 million budget. Igor garnered an Annie Award nomination for Valérie Hadida's character design.
Plot[]
One day, Glickenstein is visited by his "girlfriend" Heidi (who is actually Jaclyn in disguise attempting to steal his plans), giving Igor aspirations of romance. After throwing out Heidi, Glickenstein ignores Igor's concerns of using better parts for his latest invention, which is a rocket ship that malfunctions and explodes, taking Glickenstein with it. At this same moment, King Malbert arrives to see Glickenstein and demand that he build an invention that could defeat Schadenfreude, who Malbert fears will replace him as king due to his popularity. Unable to tell the truth of Glickenstein's death and seizing the opportunity, Igor boldly claims that Glickenstein is creating life, which greatly pleases Malbert, who proclaims that such an invention would make its creator the greatest evil scientist of all time. After the king leaves, Igor reveals to Scamper and Brain his project to create a huge and monstrous being from human remains.
With Brain and Scamper's help, he assembles the giant, and adds an "evil bone" that will make it pure evil. It first seems his experiment failed but seconds later, the monster, which turns out to be female, reveals to have been revived and later escapes. They later find the giantess in an orphanage playing with blind orphans. At the same time, Schadenfreude sneaks into Glickenstein's castle to steal his invention, but he not only discovers that Glickenstein is dead, but his Igor had created a living monster, which he believes will be his key to taking the throne.
Igor manages to lead the giant back to the castle with flowers that she likes. There, he discovers that the evil bone he gave her was not activated, making the monster sweet, friendly and gentle despite being hideous. Igor attempts to activate the evil bone by commanding the monster to kill a fly, but she instead catches it and sets it outside. Igor tries to convince the monster that she is evil but fails as the gentle giantess misinterpreted it as "Eva" (Molly Shannon) thinking that's the name he gave her. Igor later attempts to brainwash Eva into becoming evil by bringing her to a brainwashing salon. Brain also decides to get his brain cleaned and to watch TV but breaks the remote to his TV, so he takes the remote from Eva's room and, in an attempt to change the channel, inadvertently changes the monster's TV channel from a horror movie marathon to a talk show whose topic of the day is the history of acting. She ends up watching the talk show for several hours and upon leaving the salon, she can speak proper English and aspires to be an actress.
Igor then reluctantly takes his creation back to the castle in their car, bemoaning his failures. On the way back to the castle, Schadenfreude chases after Igor attempts to steal Eva by using a shrink ray, only to fail and end up shrinking himself. Igor and his friends nearly go over a cliff, but Eva saves them all, showing her appreciation of all life. Brain then brags on about how he changed the channel for Eva's TV, thus admitting that he made her what she is. Upon learning this, Igor attempts to kill Brain with an axe in anger for ruining his monster. When Eva questions this, Scamper sarcastically tells her they're practicing for a play and the monster believes that they're performers. Igor then gets the idea to exhibit Eva at the science fair while lying to her that the fair is an "Annie" audition with a few differences. While helping Eva with the “play”, Igor slowly starts to fall for his monster, who tries to convince her creator that its always better to be good than evil, no matter how much more successful evil is.
Dr. Schadenfreude takes Igor to his home and attempts to blackmail him into giving him Eva by threatening to reveal Glickenstein's doom to King Malbert. Igor escapes, but is too late to stop Schadenfreude from exposing Igor to the King who sends him to an "Igor Recycling Plant". Schadenfreude tricks Eva into coming with him by having Heidi (Glickenstein's "girlfriend" who is revealed to be Jaclyn in disguise) pretend to kiss Igor.
At the fair, Schadenfreude once again manipulates Eva into striking him, activating her evil bone and turning her into a mindless killing machine. He unleashes the monster on the Science Fair where she destroys all the Evil Inventions whilst singing Annie's "Tomorrow". Brain and Scamper help Igor escape from the plant and learn that Malbert had deliberately killed Malaria's crops with a weather ray that created the storm clouds so he could implement his "Evil Inventions" plan, thereby keeping himself in power. Rushing into the arena, Igor tries to reason with the enraged Eva while Brain and Scamper power down the weather ray. Eva roars furiously at Igor until the sunlight begins to shine once again on Malaria, which permanently deactivates her evil bone and returning to her sweet and gentle self.
The crowd boos at Malbert for his treachery before the damaged weather ray falls and crushes him to death. Dr. Schadenfreude attempts to take power, but Eva humiliates him. The monarchy has been dissolved and Malaria becomes a republic with Igor as the president. Schadenfreude is then relegated to pickle salesman and for Jaclyn, who's revealed to be a female Igor, a pretzel saleswoman (while she begins to have feelings for Schadenfreude's Igor) while the annual science fair becomes an annual musical theatre showcase. Igor reveals his plan to build a dog to Eva, with the giantess remarking that they'll just adopt if it doesn't work out. Igor and Eva live happily together as Malaria becomes a better place.