Necromancer - Vingança do Inferno

My review was written in March 1989 after watching the film on Forum video cassette.

Modest horror pic uses the ever-popular revenge motif for this supernatural tale bowing domestically in video stores.

Attractive, round-faced Elizabeth Kaitan oplines (in her biggest role to date) as an acting student who's gang-raped by classmates but blackmailed to avoid reporting it.

Her roommate talks her into answering a "revenge" adi in the paper.

Lois Masten is the gypsy-styled necromancer who places these ads. She's in touch with the devil and uses a client's revenge request as license to go hog wild killing people, with the hapless instigator unable to stop her. In Kaitan's case, Masten demonically assumes Kaitan's form, seduces the rapists and then offs them (with minimal makeup and gore effects).

Okay acting saves this low-budgeter, which spotlights Kaitan's beauty in a multiple role. Russ Tamblyn has fun as her lecherous, Shakespeare-spoutin acting performance.

The movie did remind me of I Spit On Your Grave a bit but with a "necromancer" in the film. They should of said the "necromancer" was more of a witch because she wasn't raising any dead bodies in the movie. Though, the story flowed nicely and you can tell in advance who's next to go down. Still Elizabeth Kaitan looks amazing and her acting was believable too. I would recommend this movie.

This whole affair spells amateurish, and I'm not really talking about the acting. I last saw this film, over 15 years ago, and I had seen 14 years before that, and when watching it this time, didn't realize how bad this really was. The movie has a couple of moments of bloodletting, one nasty scene near the finale. Notice how I didn't say shock bloodletting, cause the blood looked so fake, one bathroom scene of squirting spraying blood, on one of our nasty rapists, painfully evident of this. Free flowing haired Kaitan is hot stuff. She plays an acting student, in the wrong place at the wrong time, unwittingly, stumbling upon three low life campus boys stealing exam papers. If to make sure she doesn't talk, and to be sexually satisfied, two of em' give her a nice ole raping. Her friend, encourages her to see this devil witch who can put spells on those who do wrong, a solution, to mild revenge seeking Kaitan, never thinking they'll die, or be killed by a cloned, yet sexual seeking nude Kaitan. If only she put a spell on this movie, and made it disappear. Her boyfriend a jealous, clean cut guy, dumb as daisies, so he's no real help. This is a sloppy horror, from a make it, up as you go script, with a a couple of stilted acting moments, character's responses, etc. The fitting music score is kind of creepy but clumsy too. The head rapist is a real piece of..... The horny acting professor who of course has the hots for Kaitan, and was originally her older lover, recites a ever popular Hamlet piece, that being the standout moment, so the film's got a bit of cheek. The nerdy, slicked haired geek, who warns Kaitan is fun to watch too. Below average horror at best.

I'm not a very critical person, at least when comparing myself to those who regularly review movies but I found myself painfully aware of watching acting. These actors were not able to suspend my disbelief for even a short time. The actors seem stiff and fake. The script didn't do any favors for the cast either. I really have to be honest here and recommend that everyone is better off staying far away from this abomination!

This begins with a quote attributed to the Dead Sea Scrolls and ends with a quote from Poe's "The Imp of the Perverse."

In the opening scene, a woman goes to visit what seems to be a trailer park gypsy (in fact, a necromancer operating out of her garage). The woman is there to complain about something, asking for it to stop. The necromancer causes an axe to float up in the air and chop the woman. Something of the special effects budget and limitations becomes obvious when the axe's chopping is depicted by a closeup on the axe. That way, you can't see the crew member presumably holding the axe (they could handle having it float, but having it cop while floating - too tricky). Additionally, this saved them the trouble of having to show the woman being chopped. They just put some blood on the axe and kept her out of the frame.

Three college guys steal exams from a professor's office, and also find a letter from a student to a professor indicating she'd had an affair with him. She also happens to be working late that night, and they catch her. One rapes her, while another holds her, and the third watches. They threaten to go public with the letter if she tells.

The woman doesn't report them to the police both because she is worried about the consequences to her scholarship if her affair with a teacher is discovered, and also she doesn't want her boyfriend to know about the affair either. When a friend sees an ad for a revenge service, they go to the necromancer.

Revenge comes by way of a (seeming) doppelganger that appears like the woman to the men she wants revenge on (and even others she is angry at). Blood erupts from bathroom, the doppelganger emerges to start making out with the guy, nibbles on his shoulder, the eyes glow green, and then thick red demon hands appear and the guy dies.

There's also a guy named Ernest, wearing blue jeans torn at the knees, a red t-shirt with a black pentagram on it (only one point pointing up, though), hair dyed black with green highlights, and classic horn-rimmed nerd glasses. He's worried about what the necromancer will do to the woman who hired her, and tries to warn her and do ceremonies of his own to protect her.

The woman's professor also wants to restart their affair (while he is also working on adding other women to his conquests). He's less than average-looking, overweight, with a perm and mustache, but he still gets the women somehow. A drama teacher at my high school looked about the same and accomplished the same (somehow keeping his job after having been caught having one of those affairs, too).

When the woman realizes the guys who raped her are being killed, she is alarmed. For the rest, well watch it if you must, but it's not all that great of a movie. I saw it on videotape, and the dialog was hard to hear at times, although I understand the DVD's audio is fine.

Incredibly, the video box claims the movie is "A special-effects extravaganza in the tradition of 'The Serpent and the Rainbow.'" Yeah, right! There's not all that much by way of special effects, and what there is is pretty bad. When the demon of vengeance shows its face, you'll wish they hadn't bothered.