Necromentia

From the maker of dystopian sci-fi/ fantasy Gene Generation (a comic–book actioner with DNA hackers hunted by Ling Bai’s assassin) - which made little sense plot–wise but looked amazingly like Brazil meets The Crow - here’s a quirky horror, titled NECROMENTIA (2009). Director Pearry Teo is the 'bizarro' Clive Barker, and this movie's images of suicidal delirium are clearly inspired (although, perhaps, too closely) by Hellraiser studies.

Hagen loved Elizabeth so much that he keeps her corpse clean for some fiddling, which occurs off–screen. Travis has acquired a map to gates of hell, but needs a ‘key’ to jump the sanity barrier. Demonic grotesques wait to ambush the unwary trespassers but, first, we get snippets of a labyrinthine back-story. A torture–slab panic–attack is actually the volunteer masochist paying for her pain. The ‘drug’ of some obscurity promises lunacy with benefits. Yes, there is a necromancy book, of course. Grungy set designs with corrosive lighting makes everything appear diseased - especially the Ouija board of tattooed flesh.

As in Teo’s earlier feature, screen narrative is essentially a slapdash affair here, and any clarifying dialogue is hardly significant beneath shockwaves of visual imagination. If the producers are still searching for the director to remake Hellraiser (or anything else, really!), a great stylist like Teo should be top of the shortlist.   

This review was published in Black Static #13 (October 2009).

I also reviewed all this lot for that issue:

Haunted Echoes
Alone In The Dark II
From Within
13: Game Of Death
Footprints
It's Alive
Far Cry
Messengers 2: The Scarecrow
Sick Nurses
Amsterdamned
Dr Chopper
Mr Halloween
Tormented
Wasting Away
Pig Hunt
Rogue
Walled In
Inside
Horsemen Of The Apocalypse
Staunton Hill
Drag Me To Hell
I Sell The Dead

      Brain Damage: new label in UK -
Death Of A Ghost Hunter
Prey For The Beast
Secrets Of The Clown
Serum
Silent Bloodnight
Torture Me No More

      New blu-rays: round-up
Sleepy Hollow
Freddy vs Jason
Anaconda
The Deep
Ghosts Of Mars
Blood: The Last Vampire