Necromentia

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..

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...

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.

Four disjointed stories of horror loosely connected by a tattooed quija board.

Story one is about a guy who keeps his dead wife in a bathtub and tries to bring her back....or rather....keeps saying she promised to come back. No mention of when she died, but funny how there's no decay.

Two thugs come in and make an offer to bring the wife back. Something about gateways. But there is a fatal flaw with the plot. The guy doesn't choose his fate, as the narrative says...it's thrust on him against his will.

Story two finds two brothers -- one who appears to be a crippled mute. Mr. Skinny -- a fat guy with a pig mask pops out of the TV and the kid finds him funny even tho he's covered with blood. Lots of torture scenes here, but I couldn't follow it. It's all over the map and not one frame makes sense.

I THINK this 3rd story is about a guy who wants his brother back, but by this time all logic breaks down. The stories appear to be intertwined in a way that no sense can be made of them.

That's it for me. I don't even know what the 4th tale is supposed to be but it appears to be related to the first in a way and features an extraordinarily effeminate man who loves a woman a bit too much.

Net net -- this is a clunker.

Necromentia is a nice little underground horror movie that is taking a bow for Clive Barkers mighty Hellraiser. The basic concept of people fiddling with the occult to take a peek into the beyond (except for here they don't use a Rubik's cube but rather S/M body carving and occult symbols), the music, the demons with the hooks and chains on their faces... I guess its pretty obvious. Anyway, Necromentia is not a plain rip-off. It deals with the fate of 3 different characters whose fates are connected as you understand by the end of the movie which is kind of told in a reverse fashion. The movie is rather slow but tends to break out into some gory face bashing and twisted body-modification stuff. The visuals are gritty and green-tinted like in so many movies nowadays but the look of the movie is pretty cool. There is also some pretty twisted scenes here like the fore-mentioned S/M carvings (which in one scene start like your typical torture porn just to turn out to be a chick paying to get cut up by some kind of male fetish dominatrix) or a demon with a pig mask seducing people to commit suicide. The whole setup of these scenes is really great, so I was rather disappointed to see hell and its demons presented in such a low-tech fashion. Basically all hell visions are filmed in a dark corridor with steam pipes. In the beginning it works and the eerie feeling of the flickering lights looks great until you see every demon in this setting. The demons are pretty straight and often remind of a Marilyn Manson Video with gas masks and all the typical gimmicks... nothing special except for one which looks really messed up.

There is really some potential here but the way they presented the core of the movie, which is hell, as well as the plot that pretty much leads nowhere are a real let down. So the interesting story telling devices and visual are just not enough to get Necromentia above the average.