Necromancer

Director - Dusty Nelson (Inferno, White Phantom)

Starring - Elizabeth Kaitan (Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity), John Tyler, and Rhonda Dorton (Love Bites)

Release Date - 1988

Genre - Horror

Tagline - "When simple revenge is not enough"

Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     I've collected movies for over 20 years.  It started with VHS and really came into it's own when the local video store changed hands.  The new owner didn't want to carry tapes so they sold their stock at 50 cents a pop.  I left with bags full.  Around this time I started collected DVD as well.  It all started with a new computer with a DVD drive, Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Little Nicky.  Before I knew it I was grabbing any VHS and DVD I could find.  Over the years I've turned my back on VHS and focused more on DVD, blu, and 4K.  In recent years I've found myself completely obsessed with Troma, Wild Eye, and Vinegar Syndrome.  My monthly Vin Syn package is the highlight of my month.  Not all releases are knock outs for me but most are amazing.  Even the films I dislike I'm still proud to own.  When October's releases was delayed and arrived later in November, I had planned on waiting until I finished Game of Thrones.  However, a week of GoT made me need some horror.  I decided to start my marathon with 1988's Necromancer which is October's VSA release from Vin Syn.

     The film follows college student Julie (Kaitan) who is raped by two men who attends the same college as her.  Her rape has traumatized her and she turns to a necromancer to exact revenge.  As her anger subsides she drinks away her pain and forgets about her pact with the necromancer until the men that wronged her starts dying and she realizes that the necromancer is using her image to get close and kill the men.  

     I was really excited to check this one out.  I had watched the trailer for it several years ago on UHM when I was an avid member of their forums.  It didn't look like a movie that would forever change my life but it looked like a fun late night watch.  Sadly, once I was able to dig into it I found myself pretty bored with it.  It has an amazing story that would be so much fun if it would have embraced the horror side of it but it doesn't.  The acting in this one is solid.  The characters are not likable but they do fit the story very well.  The cast does the best with what they were given but they are very cliched and you expect them all to die.  The story for this one is fairly simple.  It follows a raped woman who turns to necromancy to get revenge.  A pretty horror based story if you ask me that would have fit in nicely with the liked of USA Up All Night.  However, the horror portion rides the backseat in this one.  Instead, we follow character of Julie as she bounces from her lover to a stalker, to the necromancer who is doing what she was hired to do.  It's very chaotic and tries to add layers that the film did not really need.  Finally, the film has a few death scenes that are very underwhelming and cheap.  The film's first kill is the most enjoyable as we watch an axe hanging on fishing line as it kills a person.  It's cheap, sill, but fun.  Sadly, the remainder of the deaths are laughable and not that enjoyable.  We see screaming men as a red hand squeezes them.  Yep, that's it.  That's the extent of the necromancer's wrath.  She squeezes their heads in awkward angles until they die.  Overall, Necromancer was not as exciting as I was hoping.  The trailer makes the film look like it's a little bit more than a college age drama with some horror elements but that's pretty much all this one is.  It has a few cool moments but not enough to make the rest of the film enjoyable.  I love Vin Syn and I'm glad I grabbed the VSA release but this is one I can't recommend.