a Primal Root written review

Before we get started, a big THANK YOU to my buddy Aslan for letting me borrow his VHS copy of this sucker. My eyes are open!

The evil ’80s, huh? The golden age of the yuppie, trickle down economics, Marty McFly, and satanic cults. Remember back to the early days of the 1980s when there was a nationwide rumor that grew to a near-hysterical panic over the stories that satanic cults were roaming the countryside looking for infants, valley girls and grandparents to sacrifice in the name of their dark master? Believe it or not, as people were rocking out to Bananrama and Soft Cell they were also all nervous about getting tied to an alter and being slit open to appease someone’s religious figure. All of this panic seemed to stem from the popularity and publicity generated by “Michelle Remembers”, an autobiography that documents a woman’s recollections under hypnosis of being forced to attend rituals performed by “The Church of Satan” back in the ’50s. An entertaining read, sure, but it was also a load of bullshit. No one was being abducted for the purpose of human sacrifice, especially not in the “ME” decade. Official investigations into the phenomenon turned up nothing and everyone in the U.S. seemed to move on when the ’90s rolled in. Well…most of us got over it…http://freewestmemphis3.org/

Still, this couldn’t stop every filmmaker on the block from exploiting the decade’s unbridled fear of falling victim to satanism! Enter “NECROPOLIS”, the bargain-basement tale of a 300 year old, metal head, Satan worshiping, motorcycle riding witch from New Amsterdam by the name of Eva (LeeAnne Baker of “Riot on 42nd Street” and “Psychos in Love” fame)! This lady roams the seedy back alleys of ’80s New York searching for a virgin sacrifice in order to keep her youth, but not before resurrecting her cult members by draining the life force of “young” recovering junkies at a local halfway house and bursting out into random interpretive dance numbers in front of papier-mâché martian masks in back of crummy New York jewelry shops. At least I’m pretty sure that’s the plot of the film…

Our film opens in the late 1800s where two separate ceremonies are taking place simultaneously. There is a goofy looking young couple joining together in that holy union of marriage while our above-mentioned satanist witch is doing some kind of Jazzercise witchey Satan routine at the altar of her cobwebby, Hot Topic-esque lair which looks more suited to a performance on Head Banger’s Ball than it does to any kind of religious worship. Then again, what do I know, I’m not a satanist.

Before you can say “nauseatingly choppy cross-cutting” the bride has her throat slit, people cry and we fast forward to present day (1986) New York, New York where our witchy woman, Eva, now resides with her bleached blonde flattop, long red nails and more eyeliner than was used on all four Pirates of the Caribbean films combined. Really, it’s as if the top half of her head is painted black. I’m sure it’s a statement.

There are two subplots for the audience to chew on here. The first involves a priest running this sort of halfway house for wayward teens (all played by actors pushing 40) overcoming drug addictions, running away from broken homes or trying to give up spreading tail for money. He’s obviously not cut out for the job as just about everyone in his care ends up alone and being murdered by Eva who sucks out the murdered “teens'” souls and spews them forth in the form of ectoplasm from her six breasts (!!!) as she feeds her zombie cultist brethren back to life. Let me tell you, the feeding scene alone is worth the price of your time to sit through this sucker.

Our second plot involves the reincarnated married couple from the opening of the film. One is a crass, dimwitted Brooklyn detective who goes by the name “Billy” (Michael Conte) and the other is a red headed British journalist with grey teeth named Dawn (Jacquie Fitz). They meet and begin flirting at the scene of a halfway house homicide. Their eyes meet over the cold, bloody corpse of one of the local “youths” and they have an immediate connection. It’s like they’ve met before! They decide to get something to eat, because nothing perks up the appetite like crying preachers and dead children, and begin their whirlwind romance as star crossed, unappealing lovers!

The plot, obviously, doesn’t hold up to scrutiny but the film’s overriding cheap goofiness almost makes up for the lack of a coherent story or any method behind, or in front of, the camera. This is the single directing credit for writer/filmmaker Bruce Hickey and it’s kind of a shame. There are few filmmakers alive who make trash cinema with such purity! This thing is astonishingly bad from beginning to end and I love Necropolis for its commitment to being the strangest, most ridiculous movie it can possibly be. So, to Bruce, his cast and crew, we at The Trash Cinema Collective salute you for your strange little contribution to sleazy satanic horror cinema! Let’s face it, your movie is peerless.

The one thing I came away with from “Necropolis” (which, by the way, doesn’t feature a single cemetery), is that Satanists seem like they just want to have fun! Motorcycles, impromptu dance numbers, three times the normal amount of boobage, and dressing up like a Lady GaGa wannabe? Now that’s a woman I want to party with! Not everyday you meet a woman who excretes ectoplasm from her nipples. Is it wrong that I can’t help but imagine what breast ectoplasm tastes like? I like to think it tastes something like Hi-C’s Ecto-Cooler…

Stay Trashy!

-Root