Necropolis

"Necropolis" is passable entertainment as far as this kind of low, low budget cheese ball horror goes. It stars LeeAnne Baker as Eva, a witch in 17th century New Amsterdam who lives on through the ages. In the 20th century, she's reincarnated as a leather wearing, motorcycle riding punk babe in a miniskirt. Here she goes about her business of sucking the life out of various chump victims, or otherwise using her power of suggestion to get them to off themselves. Her other order of business is finding some all powerful Satanic ring which further helps her to extend her life span.

Pretty much everything about this agreeably stupid movie is inane, from the dialogue to the characters to the nonsensical "story", concocted by director Bruce Hickey. Of course, you just *know* this one is going to stink to high heaven, seeing that also listed in the credits is Tim Kincaid ("Breeders", "Riot on 42nd Street") as a producer. Ed French supplies the special makeup effects, and as usual his work is about as good as it could have been given whatever minimal budget he must have had. He should take a bow for the one unqualified highlight that "Necropolis" can boast. I won't reveal much, but let's just say that it involves several breasts and several thirsty ghouls.

The performances are every bit as lame as one can expect. Baker is sexy, no doubt about that, but she's pretty dull as an antagonist. Michael Conte is the cop investigating the trail of bodies that she leaves behind, Jacquie Fitz is the reporter whom Conte romances, and William K. Reed is the knowledgeable reverend who looks after troubled youth.

If the prospective viewer is looking for something that they can jeer at with friends, "Necropolis" should fit the bill.

By the way, if you think the score sounds familiar at times, that's because "Necropolis" uses music from the movies "Eliminators", "Trancers", and "The Alchemist".

Five out of 10.

Yes, we know it's a bad movie. It's a film called Necropolis that doesn't focus on a graveyard!

However, how many films have a six-breasted witch wet-nursing zombies with ectoplasm? This mid-range b-movie clunker's good for providing a mild chuckle or two, particularly for the "satanic" interpretive dance numbers.

This is nowhere near as painful as TROLL 2 or MANOS, not that that should be a recommendation. Once upon a time, people - read teenagers - used to rent low-grade horror for the t&a and softcore sex.

As cheese it's quite piquant, but I wouldn't call it the stinkiest of cheese, we're talking mediocre awful at best. For film masochists like myself, it's just barely a diversion that you'll probably forget most of after the second beer.

My review was written in May 1987 after a screening at Liberty theater on Manhattan's 42nd St.

"Necropolis" poses the thorny question: how does Empire pictures' brass decide which of their films will be released theatrically? This meager, N. Y.-lensed effort is far below the level of quality of several of Empire's recent direct-to-video releases, yet it popped up unannounced on 42nd Street on a triple bill to bore the pants off a horror-hungry audience. Home viewers at least will have a fast-forward option.

By an unfortunate application of the Peter Principle, erstwhile bit player LeeAnne Baker graduates to a leading role here, sashaying trashily through "Necropolis" as a 300-plus-year-old devil worshiper, preying upon New Yorkers to suck out their lifeforce. It seems, per a ludicrously cheap prolog set in New Amsterdam in 1686, that she was interrupted in a satanic ritual and must now complete it in order to obtain eternal lif for herself and a grisly bunch of ghouls. Most interesting gimmick is an Ed French makeup effect giving Baker three sets of breasts with which to sucklethe ghouls with the genre's requisite (ever since "Alien") daily requirement of KY jelly.

Al Pacino-lookalike Michael Conte unconvincingly plays the cop on the case, while British-accented Jacquie Fitz is a bland heroine and William K. Reed the neighborhood black reverend, ever ready with a set of wooden crosses to stake Baker and her ghouls.

Campiest material has b aker, looking hideous with short-cropped platinum blonde hairdo, eyelids covered in black, garbed in trashy black outfits emulating Vanity and Madonna, doing exotic dnces by herself without warning. Under Bruce Hickey's limp and static direction, even this isn't funny on a camp level.

A few moments of creativity in an otherwise terrible film.

First and foremost, this is a bad movie.

However, there were a couple nice moments like cutting between the Christian wedding and the Satanic ceremony. There is also a fun special effects moment where the witch feeds the undead ectoplasm.

But the acting is terrible. The cinematography is terrible. The "action sequences" are so, so, very bad.

At the end of the day, you should skip this one.

New Amsterdam, 1686: evil witch Eva (LeeAnne Baker) interrupts the marriage of Dawn (Jacquie Fitz) and William (Michael Conte), psychically summoning the virgin bride to a Satanic altar to be sacrificed in a ritual that would grant Eva eternal life. Dawn's throat is cut, but before the ceremony can be completed, Eva is killed by priest Henry (William K. Reed).

300 years later, and Eva, reincarnated as a peroxide-blonde punk biker chick with bad make-up, proceeds to suck the life energy from unfortunate New Yorkers to feed to her mouldy zombie acolytes (via her three sets of ectoplasm-oozing tits!); once fully revived, these manky minions seek out the reincarnation of Dawn, so that the witch can finish what she has started. Can Italian cop Billy and do-gooder Rev. James, the 20th century reincarnations of William and Henry, prevent her from succeeding?

Six breasts are better than two, as the old saying goes, but even with its triple-chested, zombie-suckling witch bitch, Necropolis proves to be a frustratingly dull slice of 80s schlock horror, with a dreadful script and uninspired direction from Bruce Hickey, and dire performances all round. There are, of course, a few giggles to be had from the sheer ineptitude of proceedings—Baker's embarrassingly bad impromptu interpretive dance routines are good for a laugh, as is the bloody decapitation of a zombie that continues to scream long after his noggin has gone—but when you're not sniggering, you'll probably be yawning.

3.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to four for IMDb.