As I mentioned in my Breeders review, Charles Band hired adult filmmaker Tim Kincaid to produce several direct-to-video movies. These were to be released under Band’s home video label, Wizard Video, which he started after leaving Meda Home Entertainment. While Kincaid was the primary director, he did hire other filmmakers for these projects, like Peter Manoogian for Enemy Territory. Enter Bruce Hickey, a theater actor from Chicago best known for playing Danny Zuko in the original production of Grease. In addition to acting, Hickey directed a few plays, including an adaptation of Hatful of Rain and Fool For Love. At some point, Tim Kincaid contacted him about producing a low-budget horror film shot in New York City. Hickey wrote a screenplay about a 300-year-old witch living in modern times, using cast and crew members from Kincaid’s camp. After a 1986 UK home video premiere, Necropolis got a 1987 US release.
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Rating
Synopsis
In 1686 New Amsterdam, the satanic witch Eva (LeeAnne Baker) placed a curse on Dawn (Jacquie Fitz) during her wedding. Unfortunately, Eva is killed by the local villagers before the ritual is finished, but not before swearing vengeance. Three hundred years later, Eva returns as a goth biker chick in New York City circa 1986. She uses her powers to rebuild her satanic coven and reclaim a powerful ring imbued by The Devil. After she leaves a trail of bodies, Detective Billy William (Michael Conte) investigates the deaths, which he rules as suicide. However, local reverend Tony (Andrew Bausili) believes the newly reincarnated witch killed these people. Eva can manipulate people’s minds, driving them to either self-harm or sell their souls to Satan. With the help of Detective Williams and Dawn’s descendant, Father Tony sets out to stop the witch for good.
Review
Given the outrageous premise, you would expect Necropolis to be a cheesy, fun, low-budget B-movie with plenty of laughs. Unfortunately, the poster and premise massively oversell the actual movie, which is a boring mess with some awful acting. LeeAnne Baker, who previously had minor roles in Breeders, Psychos in Love, and Galactic Gigolo, gets the lead role here. Sadly, it’s easy to see why she had bit parts considering her acting is on par with a bad porno. Seeing her try to be intimidating and seductive with her constant awkward dancing is unintentionally hilarious. It doesn’t help that the rest of the actors are dull and only highlight how horrendously bad Baker is. Granted, the dialogue is so bad that I can’t imagine even a good actor delivering some of these lines convincingly. Given Tim Kincaid’s involvement in this, it’s easy to see where the movie’s priorities lie.
Like Tim Kincaid’s other productions, Ed French designed the makeup effects again, and they’re easily the best part. While we don’t get to see them much, the zombie followers of Eva look effectively creepy and weird. Also, the six breasts that Eva sprouts occasionally are done well for what it’s worth. Sadly, the same can’t be said for the general filmmaking on display, which is poor all around. So many night scenes are shot so dimly lit that it’s hard to tell what’s happening. Even at an hour and seventeen minutes, the movie drags to where you’ll be begging for the ending. I’ve seen plenty of low-budget films that didn’t have a lot of resources that still look better than this. Overall, Necropolis could’ve been a decently fun exploitation cheapie, but besides some ok makeup effects, it isn’t exciting. Moral of the story: don’t trust a movie’s box art.
Buy Necropolis from Amazon: https://amzn.to/438S3xn.
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