Necromancer - Das Tor zur Hölle

This begins with a quote attributed to the Dead Sea Scrolls and ends with a quote from Poe's "The Imp of the Perverse."

In the opening scene, a woman goes to visit what seems to be a trailer park gypsy (in fact, a necromancer operating out of her garage). The woman is there to complain about something, asking for it to stop. The necromancer causes an axe to float up in the air and chop the woman. Something of the special effects budget and limitations becomes obvious when the axe's chopping is depicted by a closeup on the axe. That way, you can't see the crew member presumably holding the axe (they could handle having it float, but having it cop while floating - too tricky). Additionally, this saved them the trouble of having to show the woman being chopped. They just put some blood on the axe and kept her out of the frame.

Three college guys steal exams from a professor's office, and also find a letter from a student to a professor indicating she'd had an affair with him. She also happens to be working late that night, and they catch her. One rapes her, while another holds her, and the third watches. They threaten to go public with the letter if she tells.

The woman doesn't report them to the police both because she is worried about the consequences to her scholarship if her affair with a teacher is discovered, and also she doesn't want her boyfriend to know about the affair either. When a friend sees an ad for a revenge service, they go to the necromancer.

Revenge comes by way of a (seeming) doppelganger that appears like the woman to the men she wants revenge on (and even others she is angry at). Blood erupts from bathroom, the doppelganger emerges to start making out with the guy, nibbles on his shoulder, the eyes glow green, and then thick red demon hands appear and the guy dies.

There's also a guy named Ernest, wearing blue jeans torn at the knees, a red t-shirt with a black pentagram on it (only one point pointing up, though), hair dyed black with green highlights, and classic horn-rimmed nerd glasses. He's worried about what the necromancer will do to the woman who hired her, and tries to warn her and do ceremonies of his own to protect her.

The woman's professor also wants to restart their affair (while he is also working on adding other women to his conquests). He's less than average-looking, overweight, with a perm and mustache, but he still gets the women somehow. A drama teacher at my high school looked about the same and accomplished the same (somehow keeping his job after having been caught having one of those affairs, too).

When the woman realizes the guys who raped her are being killed, she is alarmed. For the rest, well watch it if you must, but it's not all that great of a movie. I saw it on videotape, and the dialog was hard to hear at times, although I understand the DVD's audio is fine.

Incredibly, the video box claims the movie is "A special-effects extravaganza in the tradition of 'The Serpent and the Rainbow.'" Yeah, right! There's not all that much by way of special effects, and what there is is pretty bad. When the demon of vengeance shows its face, you'll wish they hadn't bothered.

This whole affair spells amateurish, and I'm not really talking about the acting. I last saw this film, over 15 years ago, and I had seen 14 years before that, and when watching it this time, didn't realize how bad this really was. The movie has a couple of moments of bloodletting, one nasty scene near the finale. Notice how I didn't say shock bloodletting, cause the blood looked so fake, one bathroom scene of squirting spraying blood, on one of our nasty rapists, painfully evident of this. Free flowing haired Kaitan is hot stuff. She plays an acting student, in the wrong place at the wrong time, unwittingly, stumbling upon three low life campus boys stealing exam papers. If to make sure she doesn't talk, and to be sexually satisfied, two of em' give her a nice ole raping. Her friend, encourages her to see this devil witch who can put spells on those who do wrong, a solution, to mild revenge seeking Kaitan, never thinking they'll die, or be killed by a cloned, yet sexual seeking nude Kaitan. If only she put a spell on this movie, and made it disappear. Her boyfriend a jealous, clean cut guy, dumb as daisies, so he's no real help. This is a sloppy horror, from a make it, up as you go script, with a a couple of stilted acting moments, character's responses, etc. The fitting music score is kind of creepy but clumsy too. The head rapist is a real piece of..... The horny acting professor who of course has the hots for Kaitan, and was originally her older lover, recites a ever popular Hamlet piece, that being the standout moment, so the film's got a bit of cheek. The nerdy, slicked haired geek, who warns Kaitan is fun to watch too. Below average horror at best.

Yep, just another trashy horror film. A young blonde college graduate gets raped, then unwittingly utilises the help of a demon to get her own back on her aggressors and anyone else she happens to be upset with. There now follows 85 minutes of ropey special effects and irritating incidental music, as our hapless victim attempts to find a way to make the slaughter stop. Some unintentional laughs lighten up what is generally a tedious affair, with fake blood & guts galore and far too many shots of blokes in their underpants. Of course it also has the requisite female kit-offery in it as well. Yee-ha! Sadly, despite the best efforts of Miss Elizabeth Cayton's double D's, the film is likely to remain as forgotten as New Coke. Or the Millennium dome. Or the Atari Jaguar. Or.. well, I think you get the picture.. 2/10

I'm not a very critical person, at least when comparing myself to those who regularly review movies but I found myself painfully aware of watching acting. These actors were not able to suspend my disbelief for even a short time. The actors seem stiff and fake. The script didn't do any favors for the cast either. I really have to be honest here and recommend that everyone is better off staying far away from this abomination!

After pretty blonde drama student Julie (Elizabeth Kaitan) is raped by a trio of privileged sleazeballs, she pays a visit to a necromancer (Lois Masten Ewing) who summons a shape-shifting demon to take revenge. When the demon starts killing those who have wronged her, Julie has a change of heart and accepts help from magic obsessed weirdo Ernest (Waide Aaron Riddle).

Cheap as chips supernatural rape revenge flick Necromancer is a fairly dreadful straight-to-video bottom shelf filler, with weak performances and woeful visual effects (the demon's eyes are hilarious), the only positives being some topless nudity from its shapely star Kaitan, and one gory scene at the very end.

The remainder of the film is bloodless (unless you count the watery red stuff that erupts from the world's ugliest bathroom), totally devoid of scares, and bereft of originality. Russ Tamblyn puts in a passable turn as pervy drama teacher Charles, who abuses his position to get laid, but the majority of the cast are plain bad (and what's with those green 'horns' in Ernest's hair?).

Oh, and if you're ever called upon by a friend to help her defeat a demon of vengeance, please blow out any lit candles in your house before you leave.