La mano assassina

"Netherworld" is a typical Full Moon's horror flick-entertaining for a while,but not really memorable.The cast is decent,the photography is pretty good and the story is okay.Basically it's about one guy,who with the help of a sexy witch tries to re-animate his dead father.Not very violent,although there are two or three gore scenes made by Mark Shostrom("The Mutilator").The film is also quite atmospheric and relatively well-made.David Schmoeller("Tourist Trap")is definitely a talented genre director.Anyway,if you like horror movies I would recommend this one.Not the greatest horror flick ever made,but worth checking out.

Another disappointing effort from Full Moon, once of those films which promises plenty but ends up delivering very little. This one has a stand-out opening sequence involving a young man entering a brothel for the first time and the bizarre events that take place there, but this has very little to do with the rest of the movie, which just sort of meanders along for a long time. It's a typical story about a young guy moving into his ancestral home and the strange events that befall him, but this is a long-winded talker of a movie in which very little happens of interest, and the chief entertainment comes from a few moments involving a floating hand.

Poor movie, some nasty special effects and several beautiful girls are the ingredients of a horror movie that makes you smile, unintentionally, at how bad it was done.

NETHERWORLD, a Full Moon picture set in the Louisiana swamps, successfully delivers a Gothic atmosphere filled with lush vegetation, isolated manor homes, and brothels operated by voodoo sorceresses. However, thanks to a hopelessly cheesy script, the film never transcends its early-90s low-budget roots.

The plot concerns a Corey Thornton, a dashing young man who has just inherited a vast estate from the father he never knew in life. While combing through the deceased's papers, he discovers that his father's last wish was to be brought back from the dead. Corey becomes obsessed with this task and seeks help from those around him: Bijou (the slobbering neighborhood idiot-savant), Diane (Southern-fried "jailbait" who actually looks to be about 25 years old), his father's lawyer (who has mysteriously deformed hands), and of course Delores (a prostitute with big hair and mystical powers).

The action alternates between Corey's manor house and Tonk's, the brothel-next-door, where all the girls are named after dead celebrities...or have Marilyn Monroe and Mary Magdalene really been resurrected?! The band plays smooth jazz as passions rise and Delores casts sultry glances at everyone. Then things get weird. A hand flies out of the wall and starts killing people, whose souls become trapped inside the bodies of birds. A bird which is clearly a hand puppet screams "NEVERRRRRR!" We finally descend to the Netherworld, where the forces of evil fight for control of Corey's mind in a scene that will leave you wondering, "Oh...that was the climax?" All in all, Netherworld is a good bit of entertainment which never gets boring; however, one can't shake the feeling that if slightly more money and effort had been put into it, it could have been good instead of just adequate.

NETHERWORLD (1992)

BASIC PLOT: A man, Corey Thornton (Michael Bendetti), returns home to Louisiana, after his father, Noah (Robert Sampson), dies, to claim his estate. It's an old world plantation, with many strange happenings, and people. Corey, who never knew his father, becomes preoccupied with him, by reading his father's diaries. He begins dreaming of his father's mistress, Delores (Denise Gentile). He is warned by Diane Palmer (Holly Floria), the daughter of the woman who runs the plantation, against going to the backwoods brothel where Delores works. But his dreams keep intensifying, and the pull is strong. There are many powerful Voodoo Queens about, but which one can he trust? Is there a way to discover his father's true intentions, before his passions consume him?

WHAT WORKS: *This is an atmospheric, plain and simple. The only problem here, is they forgot to layout the plot and characters, so what you are left with, falls short. It does have beautiful locations, and beautiful people.

*Louisiana Voodoo is it's own religion, separate from Haitian Voodoo, Cuban Sanitaria, or Hoodoo. It is heavily dominated by women, Voodoo priestesses, which this movie accurately portrays. The women have the real power in the movie, and in the spiritual arts of Louisiana.

*Imprisoning souls in birds, is a cool take on an old Haitian Voodoo practice, but doesn't have much to do with reality. I can forgive this, it is fiction after all, but one cool plot device, can't carry the whole movie.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: *There's no plot, not really. I'm a huge fan of Full Moon Productions, and this is not terrible, but it leaves a lot to be desired.

*There's no character development AT ALL! Not one character had a backstory, it's all surface. He's an accountant, a henchman, a prostitute, does that tell you anything? NO!

TO RECOMMEND, OR NOT TO RECOMMEND, THAT IS THE QUESTION: *If you are a fan of Full Moon movies, you might want to see this. If you like movies that contain Voodoo, or Louisiana locations, you might like this. Otherwise, I'd probably give this a pass. It had real potential, they just never utilized any of it.

CLOSING NOTES: *I have no connection to the film, or production in ANY way. I am just an honest viewer, who wishes for more straight forward reviews. Hope I helped you out.