[Rating: Minor Rock Fist Up]
Man, did I need this movie more than I realized.
I’ve said this once or twice before, but my day job is news reporting. And, to be frank, the last two weeks have been tough. Three mass shootings in the span of a week, one of them being in my coverage area. Constantly being immersed in that takes a toll on you.
So, I needed something like Nekrotronic to detach, which is funny because the movie is about demons possessing people who are too attached to their phone.
No, I needed this movie because it is dumb fun. It is everything I loved in a horror movie growing up; it was funny, it was short and to the point, and it had ridiculous death scenes. For 90 minutes, I was able to forgot what was happening in the world and totally enjoy myself. Which is what a good movie is supposed to do, right?
Nekrotronic (trust me, I’m copying and pasting that title every time because I don’t trust myself to spell it correctly) stars Dave Beamish as Howard North, sewage worker who discovers he’s a Nekromancers, a family of demon hunters. Howard has gone his whole life not knowing he’s part of this clan until his buddy Rangi (Epine Bob Savea) starts playing a game on his phone that allows people believe they’re catching ghosts. Something in this app triggers a device in Howards brain, causing him to join the fight of good versus evil.
That game was created by Finnegan (Monica Bellucci), an evil demon who absorbs people’s souls to increase her power. Instead of sucking souls the traditional way, when the twenty first century rolled around, she figured out a way to hack people’s phones and suck out their souls. Pretty clever since everyone is always on their phone. You’re probably reading this on a phone right now, aren’t you?
Anyway, Howard teams up with Molly and Torquel (Caroline Ford and Tess Haubrich, respectively), to save everyone’s soul and defeat Finnegan.
While the movie is funny, Epine Bob Savea steals most scenes after he’s turned into a ghost who probably got his sense of humor from Flight of the Conchords, and moves through the story quickly, after the second act, things start to get muddled. Writer and director Kiah Roache-Turner over complicates things when simplicity in storytelling would’ve gone a lot further. He tries to over-explain the demon hunting and adds twists that didn’t need to be there.
I also had trouble buying Monica Bellucci as an evil demon. She played Finnegan with subtlety, which worked at times, but also left me wanting more from the character.
Kiah Roache-Turner’s influences can be seen throughout the movie. There’s shots that look Evil Dead-esque and the final battle scene between Molly, Howard and Finnegan looks like it should’ve been in a Ghostbusters film. Also, whether intentional or not, I got heavy Repo Man vibes.
So, yeah, the movie has some flaws, but if you enjoy silly horror movies, then these are 90 plus minutes that’ll help you forget everything going on in the world.
Joe Jarosz is a Midwest boy living in California. As much as he likes to think he has an edge, he’s quick to cry at the latest animated movie he takes his kid to see.
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