Necropolis — Necropolis(DVD)

Necropolis is a trashy, often decidedly silly slice of NYC based 80’s horror- which tells of a satanic witch reborn three hundred years after she was banished, as a blonde haired biker punk. As part of Full Moons Grindhouse series, here we have a region free DVD reissue of the film.

Appearing in 1986 Necropolis was the one and only full-length directored by Bruce Hickey. It’s fair to say its very cheap example of 1980’s horror- it really does feel like the kind of thing one would have picked up back in the day after perusing the shelves of your local video shop. With its promise of living dead in NYC, kinky satanic punk witch, and the end of the world us we know it. But as trashy VHS fans learnt- promises were often false.

Basically, Necropolis is a decidedly haphazard blend of cheap supernatural horror, low-grade cop action, some real atrocious solo disco dancing, lurking ghouls, a few effective & bizarre effects scenes, and lots & lots of darkly shot footage of NYC. If there was ever a case for a polish up & rescanning- this is a film that needs it, but sadly the version we have here is just a slight step up from blurry VHS.

The film brings together a low rent Al Pacino police inspector, a often inexplicably smiling black priest, a very camp pathologist, and a plucky-though-flirty British female reporter to flight the short blonde hair punk witch- who has grown two extra sets of breasts, with which she is feeding ectoplasm to her ghouls. And really it’s as silly, dumb & cheesy as you’d expect- sure the gore/ blood is ltd, and it’s often decidedly murky in it looks- but you get a truckload of amusing dialogue, painful overacting, and an effective enough pulsing synth score.

This DVD is rather a barebones affair- we’ve already discussed the print- so we’ll move onto the extras.  Seemingly with all of this Grindhouse series we get the same extras- there’s an eight-minute featurette from Charles Band discussing the general concept behind the Grindhouse series, a trailer for the early releases in the series, and a general selection of Full Moon trailers.

I think you really have to have a real fondness for the days of VHS trashy & promise to really get the most out of Necropolis- as it’s far from a conveniently good, or effective horror film- so if that’s what you're here for best look elsewhere…but if you want high camp satanic witch fun, you’ll have a good enough time here.