Filmmakers Jason Impey and Wade Radford are back once more, with a film that echoes their last feature collaboration, 2014's well-received TWINK.
The formula is, on the surface, very similar. Impey portrays a documentarian; Radford plays his surly subject.
NECROPHILIAC opens with Impey waiting for Haydn (Radford) in local woods. It's a sunny morning, the air is still. Impey records on a handheld camera as Haydn finally comes into view, casually sauntering towards him. An awkward introduction over - Haydn explaining how he's just been moved along from a nearby graveyard, where he was caught caressing a tombstone - and the pair start walking towards Haydn's car, parked a short distance away. The plan, it soon transpires, is that he will drive Impey to his house on the outskirts of town and an onscreen interview chronicling his obsession with corpse-fucking will ensue.
From the offset, Haydn is arrogant, aggressive and vulgar. Impey (his character is never named) appears understandably apprehensive in his company.
The proceeding car journey at least allows for a little humour, putting Impey at ease a tad as they discuss living in the country, the plights of being a budding indie filmmaker, female drivers and the like.
Once inside Haydn's home, the curtains are drawn shut as Impey sets up his two cameras and his subject relaxes himself on the settee. With a penchant for making documentaries focusing on characters who exist on the fringes of society (including, in a nod to TWINK, mention of a previous project centred on a washed-up porn star), Impey is eager to coax the most salacious details possible from what promises to be his most outrageous interviewee yet.
But there's a danger to Haydn - a steely coldness in his eyes, a contemptible bile about his speech that creates an atmosphere of personal risk. And that's despite his assurance that he'd never actually kill someone for sex. As their conversation moves from fetishist whims and procuring cadavers to sexual desire and revolting anecdote, Haydn hectors his interviewer sporadically, accusing him of being the bigger pervert for desperately pursuing each sordid detail.
Things turn truly sinister when Impey is invited upstairs, where Haydn has a dead friend waiting - and invites the filmmaker to observe as he becomes more acquainted with it...
Flirting with a danger you don't truly understand. It's a theme you can trace through a number of the prolific Impey's back catalogue (TWINK, SEX LIES AND DEPRAVITY, HOMEMADE, NAKED NAZI, LUSTFUL DESIRES etc). It works each time because it's something the audience can relate to, and something we all secretly enjoy doing from a safe distance. Where Impey takes us in his films is over that line of safety, and into harm's way.
Here, much like in TWINK, he himself portrays the person who's flirting far too intimately with danger: the moth that's flown right into the flame. In fact, the premise is at first disconcertingly similar to TWINK's, a matter accentuated by the same verite style of filmmaking and two-man casting, and same volatile relationship enjoyed between the characters of the documentarian and his subject. In both films their tenuous affiliation teeters throughout, the power struggle coming into play demonstrating how Radford's seemingly brusque interviewee is shrewd enough to turn the tables on the unwitting filmmaker and shift the focus onto aiming questions at him. In both cases the distinction between who's exploiting who is constantly blurred.
By their own admission, Impey and Radford (billed as co-directors on this venture) have consciously repeated the formula used for the successful TWINK. Their reasoning is that, while the latter was geared towards the LGBT crowd, this aims for a different audience: the horror fraternity. So you can expect most of the action to take place in a single setting; everything to be filmed in faux documentary style; the aforementioned cast of just two; long takes with largely improvised dialogue berating various ways in which society is failing; and some engaging power games which probably account for 70% of the running time.
However, NECROPHILIAC does differ from TWINK in several ways. For a start, Impey is on screen a lot here: he remained behind the camera in the earlier film. Radford goes to lengths to proffer a character removed from his TWINK persona, lowering the tone of his voice and snarling from behind sunglasses during the opening act in a bid to, presumably, play it straight. This also has a far more polished sheen to it. Along with imaginative compositions and highly proficient editing between the two cameras being employed, there is a filtered taint to proceedings which lends the drama a stylised, cinematic vibe.
Speaking about the last 20 minutes or so of this 63-minute film is difficult, because that's when things really heat up in terms of genre action - and I'm unwilling to give away spoilers. Suffice it to say, we're treated to a convincingly rotten corpse along the lines of NEKROMANTIK and LUCKER THE NECROPHAGUS, and events take a turn into territory best described as being "dark" and "squalid".
The resolution is admittedly predictable, perhaps even unimaginative, and the overall impact is less than that of TWINK. Maybe that's because the latter came first, or maybe because the filmmakers' grasp of that subject matter was more persuasive. Whereas TWINK rallied against an uncaring film industry with insider conviction and convincingly screamed against the vanity, despair, delusion and broken promises that come with trying to "make it", NECROPHILIAC's tirades feel a bit aimless in comparison.
But it still succeeds as an engaging, thought-provoking foray into taboo subject matter. The power struggles and verbal sparring of the two leads remains fresh for films of this ilk, while the exploitative element is certainly met during the sobering final act.
A film that does what it says on the tin while taking the time to actually explore both its theme and its characters, NECROPHILIAC: THE LUSTFUL DEAD may not be to all tastes but is definitely worth a look for the more adventurous fan of no-budget horror (reportedly £150.00!).
Review by Stuart Willis
| Directed by Jason Impey and Wade Radford |