Netherbeast Incorporated

saw this last at the 7th London Sci-Fi and Fantasy Festival. It was absolutely brilliant - good laughs in all the right places and not blindingly gory. The general understated tone makes it all that more enjoyable.

The cast was also great - nobody so big it takes your eye off the ball but some familiar faces; Dave Foley from some episodes of 'Scrubs' and Jason Mewes from the 'Jay and Silent Bob' movies were both a pleasant surprise.

Thank you to the creators! I've been waiting for a good 'vampire' movie since Coppola did his take on Dracula. I will be buying this on DVD and looking forward to watching other Ronalds/Dellis projects in the future.

Just finished watching Netherbeast Incorporated and well...it had a few moments. It star's a pretty well-stocked cast and a moderate budget. The general plot is a re-invention of the vampire, and the movie spends about 1/3 of it's time explaining just what they are. For one thing, they're not that different than normal people...except for the fact that well...they eat normal people to survive. The Netherbeasts, as they like to be called, spend their lives in a corporate building, protected from the outside world. It's kind of like Office Space for vampires. They do office work...except they don't retire after 30 years...for some of them it goes on for several decades. Their current lifestyle is in danger from outside sources which is actually more of a sub-plot to their everyday normal office lives.

The problem I had was that the majority of the jokes just fell flat. Whereas I had a few chuckles, they were all delivered dead-pan without any enthusiasm whatsoever. I understand they're portraying the boring office life, and that these netherbeasts are in somewhat of a rut having the same routine for decades at a time, but the delivery of the humor should have been more engaging. The main story is really just kind of going on in the background while a forced romantic story is developing...and the rest of the cast just enters screen to say their lines and walk off. The acting was pretty sub-par, and the lines in general had a scripted sound...the sort where they literally just read it before the director said action.

It had it's funny moments, but from the cast involved I just kinda expected better. For all the actors and comedians I recognized this was probably their worst work that I've personally seen. I wouldn't say avoid this movie, but I wouldn't be rushing out on release day to grab it. If you're more into a small budget, mild dark-comedy, somewhat laggy feeling film...give it a go.

This was alright, but you're not missing anything. I was torn between 4-5 for this one, since it felt like it was *so close*.

Coming off of a vampire-office-comedy kick with Bloodsucking Bastards (good) and The Night Watchmen (not good), I was excited for Netherbeast Inc. I didn't have high expectations, but it seemed quirky and fun as it's a different take on the idea by theming it around a pro-vampire office environment.

It had a really strong/fun opening and a surprisingly recognizable cast. Jason Mewes showing up caught me off guard for sure, but he played a pretty mundane character and didn't bring his usual raunchy-schtick with him.

Contrary to other reviews, I didn't mind their voice-over narration style they used to explain the "rules" of the monsters. I thought it was kind of quirky and it felt like an office meeting with PowerPoint. The office humor was spot-on and a very deadpan depiction of corporate environments.

Overall, though, it just fell flat: The comedy dwindled and became repetitive.

The mystery wasn't very mysterious.

They spent so long clarifying that the "nether beasts" weren't like classic vampires that I would have had a better time if they just committed to that and didn't mention the V-word at all.

With all the stuff they over-explained, they had some pretty big gaps in logic with a few key things they didn't explain at all or well enough to make sense.

Its not terrible, it just felt pretty sub-par. I liked the idea, I liked some of the humor, but it just didn't get there. Its got a lot of 6+ reviews, which is surprising, but it must hit the spot for a lot of people.

Darrell Hammond is really, really good in this as a smooth talker, and much of it is KIND OF funny/quirky. It had a lot of potential, but this movie commits 3 cardinal sins.

1. They directly contradicted everything commonly known about vampires and they did it with impunity, in this smartassed matter-of-fact kind of way from a really annoying voice. It is possible to do this to an extent at the beginning to set the "rules" for the world. But continually sarcastically making fun of and contradicting the very fundamentals of vampire folklore is NOT ON. If common vampire rules are so "wrong" then maybe they should quit thinking of themselves as "vampires" to begin with, it's not what they call themselves.

2. What the hell is with this using Alexander Graham Bell? My perception of Bell will forever be tainted by this nonsense. Bell did not agree to his name and image being used like this, I think it's so unfair to do this to a deceased person. I rarely even like watching fictional depictions of real people like for instance Darwin, because I cannot trust the depiction of it, but this is just ridiculous.

3. They should have done all the narration and backstory at the start, not continually narrated throughout the whole thing and continually butchering your perception of vampires by pretending these were anything like vampires.

Saw it at the Dallas Film Festival where the whole audience laughed their butts off. It was one of those movies I'll need to see twice to catch the jokes I missed. Lots of great visual humor, too. Jeeves the stuffed dog and the cripple poster were so tasteless but so funny. I probably didn't need to see that dude with the thong, but even that was hilarious. I loved Hammand and Burns, truly outstanding performances. Judd Nelson was good and nerdy. I agree with others who said Dave Foley was wasted in the part he played, but he was still very solid in a more dramatic part. And finally Mewes didn't just play Mewes. Amy Davidson is cute as a button as the new human employee. I didn't recognize Robert Wagner (with a beard as President Garfield) until he spoke. Then I knew.

I really dug all the backstory parts explaining how the company came to be. I read a complaint here saying that the flashbacks looked like a power point project. Dude, it was SUPPOSED to be a power point project! You have to stick around until the end of the movie to discover why.

I recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys a good laugh and can appreciate a great tasteless joke.

Eye of the jackal, baby!