Necromentia

The plot: A man seeking to resurrect his dead lover runs into a shady occultist who claims to be able to help him.

Necromentia is clearly one huge homage toward the works of Clive Barker -- Hellraiser, in particular. As a huge Barker fan, I was both excited and a little disappointed. The film is grotesque, gory, and beautiful, but almost everything in it is directly "inspired" by Clive Barker, making it a bit less original than I might like. Still, it has some truly striking visuals, and some scenes that you might remember long after the movie ends.

Necromentia is slow-paced and atmospheric, and people who are more used to modern, MTV-style filmmaking might end up being bored. The budget is clearly very low, but I thought they did an excellent job with what they had. Sure, some of the set design was a little underwhelming at times, but I was not nearly as disappointed as many other people seem to have been. There are many twisted and disturbing scenes, some of which end up with a very absurd, surreal vibe. Although not really a candidate for "most disturbing movie ever", it still deserves an honorable mention.

There some original ideas here, but the themes are as old as dirt, and, admittedly, becoming a bit clichéd in horror movies. If you're looking for something more than a Hellraiser clone, I can understand how you'd dislike this movie. Despite its issues, I still enjoyed it, and I think that other Barker fans may, as well.

This movie looked so promising in the beginning and had potential, but it was never given chance to fully become what it could have.

The movie is dark and gloomy, which is nice for this type of movie. And the creatures in the movie looked cool, although there was far too much inspiration "borrowed" from Clive Barker's "Hellraiser" franchise. And also the big creature in "Necromentia" seemed to be a replica of the "Nemesis" monster from the "Resident Evil 3" game (and/or "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" movie).

As for the cast and acting, well nothing bad here. Good performances all together.

The story was fairly good up until halfway through the movie, then it lost its breath and the movie suffered horribly from it. The movie grew stale and boring at that point. But I still sat through the entire movie.

The ending? Well it did tie up the circle of the story throughout the movie. But nothing breathtaking or spectacular. And also there were no scares throughout the movie. I was constantly waiting for something grand to happen. Unfortunately, it never did.

"Necromentia" is not one of the better horror movies out there, and it certainly is not among the worst either. Just below mediocre. Suitable if you are bored an evening and got nothing better to watch...

While trying to open a portal to Hell to retrieve a long-lost love, a man finds his quest of locating the designated victim to draw the symbols required to do so far more challenging than the Dark Angel who assigned it to him thought it would be.

An ultimately disappointing effort, this one was just flat-out flawed and not really that worthwhile. The main point of contention with this one is that it's just confusing and not all that easy to follow, tending to use far more flashbacks than necessary, most of those filled with going so far out of the traditional plot line (we do have about four or five of them, and none of them intersect until the finale) that overall it just becomes so confusing as to what's going on that eventually it just becomes moot as to what's going on. This one does have some wonderfully absurd images and ideas, as there's one scene with a pig you have to see to believe, and the concept of what's going on works when it's kept to a visual standpoint instead of trying to spell it all out, but that doesn't come close to justifying the rest of the flaws in here, and overall this one is just a jumbled, incoherent mess.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Nudity.

Demons, suicide, necrophilia, transcendence through drugs and mutilation, all ingredients to whet the appetites of any self respecting fan of nastiness. Necromentia is a film well stacked with the good stuff and it has the right intentions to use it, but when all is said and done it comes in beneath its potential. It has the structure of a sequence of linked vignettes, the sequence of events avoiding a linear timeline in favour of unwrapping the mystery of how everyone is connected. A hip approach that film-makers have been fawning over since at least Pulp Fiction, it works here because everyone is connected and there isn't too much of randomness to things. The structure makes it fairly fun to get to the bottom of things and the ride is made all the better by the style on display, this is a very visual film with some sweet morbid imagery on display. The palette is predominantly dark (lots of shadow, grey and cold metal), the sets and shots cluttered and the art direction focused on chains, hooks and tools of pain, it's a horrific world on display and one so overpowering that the flesh tones and lighter colours of its characters come across as alien, an intrusion that inevitably leads to horrors as the darkness of the world around interacts with the flesh of the characters. If only the film had substance and emotional heft to support its style, but it sadly doesn't and the characters are a significant part of the problem. The acting is perfectly reasonable, with Layton Matthews conjuring an inscrutably sinister presence, Chad Grimes grimly determined and mentally frayed enough to do anything and Santiago Craig appropriately twisted and slightly pathetic. The trouble is that the film has a tight cast with most people connected, and pretty well everyone is so twisted, so tainted that empathy is impossible. The lack of balance wouldn't be so bad, since the film is clearly aiming to be something of a deeply macabre side-show, but in a film where no one is likable and the emphasis is on nasty stuff going down, things need to be seriously, impressively messed up and in Necromentia, they come close but no cigar. The visuals have imagination but lose their impact after a while, whilst the gore is kept mostly to a bit of splatter, skin carving and intestine play. The scenes are generally brief and not quite convincing, grisly but not grisly enough. So in the end the film falls somewhat short, a bit too much frustration making some of the cheaper looking scenes more noticeable and the overall hellish ambiance less interesting or effective than it could have been. This means that in the end the audience can't connect with the characters and isn't shocked by the grue, thus ends up slightly unmoved by the whole affair when it becomes apparent that it has little to offer beyond its ideas and atmosphere. Still, its watchable enough and a decent little independent effort, so a fair 5/10 from me..

Woow.!!!The Funniest movie i have seen..Its so funny that @ the end you feel like throwing away the monitor.The horror stuff was real funny,a ghost or a monster with metal equipments who sometimes suddenly starts eating human flesh.I think it is a movie for high thinkers as it was no where near my head.The pig head man seemed to be a suicidal ghost. I had to fast forward in the middle,so i am not sure if i missed something real good..

Sorry folks(for those who liked it).I found it funny rather than scary.Specially those inspired glimpse and scenes from Grudge,Ring etc.Anyway you can watch and laugh for a while before you break the TV Set.I am rating is 3 because it made me laugh for sometime..