 Dir. Matt Jaissle, 65 mins If I were to describe Necro Files 3000 as a few guys dicking around with action figures, you might think that I meant that in a bad way. But I don’t – not in the least. This movie is a follow-up (of sorts) from 1997’s The Necro Files and The Necro Files 2, which came out six years later. Full disclosure – I’ve not seen either of those films, so precisely how they all tie together is a little lost on me. But I don’t think the first two featured any action figures either way. The story is slim, but does exist – we open with a couple (a clown toy and a Barbie doll, to be precise) being terrorised by a crazed zombie cannibal that escapes for their TV screen and kills them both. The creature proceeds to go on a rampage, and the only people that can stop it are hardened occult expert Professor Blackthorn and his new companion, investigative journalist Phineas Hogweather. Phineas pokes at the darker elements of Blackthorn’s past, while the professor is unwilling to believe that the zombie menace – Logan – is loose again. But when they catch Logan killing a camgirl (that’s a weird scene) they know they have to act to stop the undead menace. It’s obvious that everyone involved is having immense fun, and also pretty apparent that this one was made for nothing or next to nothing. I say the characters are action figures, but there’s nothing stop motion a la Robot Chicken (the method is facetiously called Superpuppettronimation in the very opening frame). It is literally two guys holding the toys as the characters move around, and I could understand if this maybe puts some viewers off – it looks silly because it is. If you could imagine a rather more primitive version of Team America: World Police you might be about in the right ballpark. For all that, the enthusiasm of all involved was infectious to me, and the sense of humour here coincided with mine very nicely. The scene in which the characters repeatedly enter the wrong room looking for the camgirl was a stitch, and the movie commonly pokes fun at the absurdity of the ‘action figures as characters’ premise in a way that is plenty self-aware. Things take a deeply weird twist towards the end as Killbot 3000 and the Electronic Detective come in (not a toy I’ve heard of, but it might ring a bell for some of you!) I think basically it will just boil down to if you find this to your taste comedically – it entertained me, and made me laugh a number of times, and with that in mind I’m willing to forgive plenty that I might have been a stickler about had it less tickled my funny bone. This one is barely over an hour long, and if you like macabre humour and a bit of puppet absurdity this could be worth you investing the time on. I’ll say something I’ve often said at Film Gutter in that ‘it won’t be for everybody’, and honestly you’ll probably get a sense within five minutes if you’re in the yay or nay camp here. I believe the first two movies are a bit more straight zombie movies/slashers, but if they have the same minds behind it as this one I might just have to go back and check those out too. RATING: 7/10. I can’t go overboard – there’s only so far you can go with waving action figures around, and Necro Files 3000 probably does it about as well as is possible. There’s plenty that made me laugh, and the plot was quirky and took off in all sorts of strange directions throughout – and that absurdity helped things along for sure. I’ve always had a penchant for movies with energy and enthusiasm – for me that can go a long way towards replacing higher budgets – and this definitely fell into that category. There’s nothing particularly deep, or cutting, or insightful, but it was fun – not something I often get to say with these particular reviews…   the heart and soul of extreme horror movie reviews |
Archives
February 2022
|
RSS Feed
|
|