I hadn't known it, but apparently this is a thing. The low budget Deutsch gore epic, an effects-driven extension of the slasher (??) wherein characters wander into frame simply to get disfigured in some disgusting way... these cruel movies must be labors of love since their independent crews go to such extremes to convey borderline-comic brutality on clearly homespun budgets. It feels like a sub-subgenre totally distant to me and about which I'm totally unqualified to even interpret one random flick like this, far let alone evaluate it. I need to at least come to terms with it existing in the first place.
If such movies get more grandiose and ambitious in their set-up than Necronos, I'll be honestly surprised. It aspires to convey the battle of Otherworldly Evil vs.Earthly Innocence (not necessarily "Good"). It starts with a protracted introduction set in some middle ages or something, which right away reminded me of the nihilistic epics Thomas Zupko used to direct for Extreme Associates back in the early 2000s (most like the black plague themed In the Days of Whore, for instance, in which a leper's penis falls off in a raped woman's rectum). That the over-lit videography sits unfavorably even next to Zupko's hideous, heinous stuff, which was shot 10 years prior, and was porno, didn't offer much to my expectations. But maybe it's all in one's expectations. Some subgenres do seem to approach "film-making" more similarly to pornographers churning their delicious gooey smut than to directors who "create" "art." I am not knocking anybody, just musing.
Anyway, the presentation of this movies back-story was hilarious. You see these big blocks of calligraphy for a few seconds which narrate each following scene. There was barely enough time to read it all and it was like "books on film," as if mise en scene didn't exist, as if the story couldn't be told in any filmic way. It really gave me a hint of the director's concern with approaching big-c Cinema as a medium for ideas, moods, stories, sensory blasts, erections, whatever, what-have-you, all the good stuff that makes movies worthwhile. So apparently there was once a warlock named Necronos, in league with the devil (Hail Satan, by the way) to use an army of zombies that will bring darkness to the world of mankind. One thing I don't get is, why does Satan always suck so badly at taking over the world? We're just people, after all. He's the Prince of Darkness. Anyway, I was actually hoping the whole movie would be told in this format— all of the exposition bluntly spelled out in between the blustery blood sequences. That would have been pretty novel and amusing to me.
But then it's on to the present day, where everyone, everyone, from chubbsy-wubbsies relaxin' with a fishing pole to naked babes practicing the ars amatoria, are getting torn apart, gored apart and downright impolitely killed. Necronos is still around, using his devil-derived henchmen, still plotting with Scratch to conquer Earth. Which, it should be easy; they're immortal and people aren't. I couldn't tell if the movie was supposed to be bad, but the tight story was easy to follow and pretty much guided most of the sleazy sequences (which is the same kind of praise you'd give a porno). I liked the set design of Satan's domain and the simple black make-up was fairly menacing (Necronos brings to mind Darth Maul, especially as he refers to Beezelbub as "my master"). I'm guessing some of the gore effects and kill scenes are impressive, if you're into that kind of stuff. I noticed a woman getting impaled on a spikey pole, Cannibal Holocaust style (but more explicit). There's a somewhat silly meat grinder and lots of beheadings. In the end, the Devil spits some wisdom, "Love defeats all pain," the demonic invasion begins and we're set up for a sequel.
If I'd never seen a horror movie before, all of this would disturb and scare the sh!t out of me. Partly within the story's context, and mostly without it— just that it exists... that even amidst a surplus of real tragedies and massacres someone decides "ahoy, it'll be fun for us to make this," and that it is. Also, this movie is long. I hate long-ass movies. I doubt anyone sits down and really watches it intently for over 2 hours straight. There must be a sub-sub-cultural buddy experience associated with gore flick consumption that I'm just totally missing. I watched half of it while taking a bath, with the speed accelerated slightly on VLC media player, and even then I was like "guh, I get the gist."
Tromafreak picked it for the TrashEpics Rec challenge. I'm hopeful that someday, me taking in this movie amounts to something, somehow, if only as an awareness of stuff I'd never have experienced otherwise. I'm convinced that Scummy movies often bear an actual value, though in some cases I'm still trying to figure out what and how. So it wouldn't be fair of me to call it bad or dumb, even though it is. My own tastes in movies are so specific that when the subject of movies comes up with civilians in real life conversations, I've found it's easier for me just to say "You know, I don't even really like watching movies very much" to just avoid the topic even though watching movies is actually one of my dominant hobbies. Earlier, I compared gore movies with porn movies and the analogy is obvious and old-- and I did not mean it disparagingly. In each, gutteral releases are usually set up by minimal plots. It's always interesting though when the primal sensationalism is uniquely framed. Was that the case in this movie? I don't know, this kinda stuff is new to me. I will just say that while watching sex mostly makes me happy with the world, violence and murder make me uneasy. A number of my recs for the challenge reflect this difference.