But they're still among us, devils and hunters, waging a war unseen that can determine the whatever and you get it by now. Basically, the plot of every other Netflix mediocrity; Nerds have taken over, and this sort of geeknip is all the rage.
I wish I could say Nekrotronic, Kiah and Tristan Roache-Turner's follow up to Wyrmwood, rises above that crap pile. And, well, I will say it, because that's a pretty easy bar to clear, but... not too confidently, because it's not very good. It spends too much time setting up a universe that isn't that interesting, with jokes that aren't that funny, and the low budget action varies wildly in quality and effectiveness.
It starts promisingly enough. After a short infodump we're introduced to our protagonist Howard, a sewage worker and his buddy Rangi, ostensibly a co-worker, but he's just basically playing ARGs on his phone all the time. That's what counts as a joke in this movie, by the way. Beyond that, though, they have a likeable enough chemistry. So, the newest game Rangi is playing, a kind of Pokemon Go with ghosts, is actually part of an eeeeeevil corporation's plan to use phones to possess people en masse. because oh yeah, apparently demons found a way to get into the internet.
Soon enough something goes wrong and Howard realizes there's a secret world filled with hostile occult forces etc. etc. While running away, they get rescued by Luther (David Wenham), a guy who kind of looks like Sean Bean and drives around in a high-tech Van with his two ridiculously beautiful daughters (Caroline Ford and Tess Haubrich).
Luther does indeed shortly get Sean Beaned, but not before explaining to our intrepid protagonist that the demon hunter powers are hereditary, an he's the son of the demon hunterest demon hunters that ever demon hunted. Oh, and his mom (Monica Bellucci!!) got possessed and is the big bad.
Yeah, the plot is not great. Even though it's an original idea, it feels extremely comic-book-ish.
Howard's buddy is shortly killed but brought back as a ghost who follows everyone around, kind of like a lame, unfunny Griffin Dunne; his main thing is popping up leaning casually against weird angles, something the filmmakers apparently thought was hilarious. I guess Joe Piscopo in Dead Heat is a better comparison.
Will young Howard master his gifts? Will the prettiest demon hunter inexplicably fall for him in the few hours they have together? Well, yeah, duh. But what is pretty funny is that along the way Howard fucks up, repeatedly, to a degree that these movies seldom have the balls to pursue. Sure, it makes it that much harder to buy him as a hero (or to understand why two certified, experienced badasses would put up with him or come to like him) but it offers up some pretty fun moments in a movie that mostly flubs it jokes.
It's an action/horror/comedy hybrid with just a few laughs and no scares, so the action has to pick up the slack. And it does, kind of, in a very low-key way. I liked the designs, some of which are pretty out there:
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| Pretty metal, right? Or at least very Doom 3. |
The whole film's deal is a mix between demons and technology, and it does ok on that front. The effects are a mix of practical and digital with predictably mixed results. There's some shootouts, some cool ghosts, a lot of energy attacks and wavy power lines coming out of hands. It's not great, but there's an energy to it I kind of like, at least when it's not shaking the camera for (shitty) effect.
So definitely not a great movie, and definitely not one I'd recommend, but I don't know, it's kind of fun. It's silly, overstuffed, buys into its own mythos with way too much enthusiasm, and honestly is just kind of a mess overall, but it's enjoyable as background watching. It's similar to Wyrmwood, but where that film's oddball ideas mostly worked, here... they mostly don't.
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