80's American Horror Part Eighty-Five

NECROPOLIS

(1986)

Dir - Bruce Hickey

Overall: WOOF

 

A bottom-barrel debut from writer/director Bruce Hickey, Necropolis is typically incompetent genre garbage that blows its potential as an oddball novelty.  Shot with no money and non-actors, on paper it has a generic, fool-proof premise of a condemned witch that comes back from the dead for vengeance-seeking purposes.  In execution, things could not go more wrong as it fails to establish any supernatural rules, simply taking LeeAnne Baker's lead antagonist into the modern century after a flashback prologue with non-existent production values that make such a transition clunky at best.  The dialog is painfully inept and occasionally hilarious because of it, especially when we meet a group of prostitutes who talk the way no human beings have ever talked in the history of talking.  Baker makes for a striking, punk rock vampire/witch/Satanic mistress lady, but her powers and actions are as arbitrary as they come.  She interpretive dances, fucks with people for no plot-driven reason, sucks either their blood or nondescript life goo, (the movie looks so relentless awful that it is legitimately difficult to tell what is even on screen half the time), and in easily the movie's most ridiculous scene, she flexes her muscles and sprouts six boobs for her cloaked minions to suckle on.  There is also some crap about a reporter, detective, and a drug counselor, but who cares.  Everything that happens is stupid and everyone on screen sucks.

 

DRACULA'S WIDOW

(1988)

Dir - Christopher Coppola

Overall: MEH

For his debut behind the lens, Christopher of the Coppola family made the off-beat horror comedy Dracula's Widow which is too clunky to work.  The premise is simple enough as mayhem ensues after the title character, (played by Emmanuelle herself Sylvia Kristel in a goofy wig), comes to Hollywood in a crate that was delivered to an eccentric wax museum owner, (played by Laura Palmer's agoraphobic orchid-loving friend from Twin Peaks, Lenny Von Dohlen).  Wishing to indulge in two genres at once, Coppola made the curious choice to include inconsistent, noir-style narration from a veteran homicide detective which shows up so infrequently as to be jarring when it does.  Also puzzling is Von Dohlen's performance which is odd even before he gets infected by the bite of the undead, but only becomes more so as he seems persistently on the verge of tears with his wide-eyed, bizarre mannerisms.  This acting choice was likely intentional, but it does not help to make him a sympathetic victim, plus various other plot threads seem half-baked.  These include an elderly Van Helsing decedent who barely shows up as well as Von Dohlen's girlfriend Jenny Harker, (yet another nod to the Bram Stoker novel), having some sort of psychic ability for about a scene and a half at the end.  Some of the gore is gnarly while other effects work is comically dated, but the whole thing fails to hit its spoofing mark.

DR. CALIGARI

(1989)

Dir - Stephen Sayadian

Overall: MEH

After two avant-garde pornos, filmmaker Stephen Sayadian dropped the adults-only angle with the still perverse yet infinity more bizarre Dr. Caligari, (Dr. Caligari 3000).  A parody of nonsensical midnight movies, it is a combination of Richard Elfman's absurdist musical Forbidden Zone, (minus the songs), anything involving Andy Warhol's Factory cronies, John Waters' aggressive tastelessness, and experimental theater.  The set design is a kitsch, primitive take on that of the German Expressionism landmark film which this is a loose sequel to, (the title character played by Madeleine Reynal is the granddaughter of Werner Krauss' doctor from Robert Wiene's original), and the characters constantly vogue as they prattle off seemingly meaningless dialog, usually speaking directly into the camera with their loud costumes and tacky Goth makeup creating a jarring aesthetic to say the least.  Fans of surreal nonsense will have a viscerally gleeful reaction to the off-the-wall presentation and ridiculous subject matter, but the relentless approach taken by Sayadian quickly grows tiresome.  It is not so much that the "story" barely has enough of a through-line to follow, it is more that it is not worth following in the first place with the barrage of goofy, horny weirdness taking center stage.