Look, it isn't my
fault. I'm not deliberately trying to drown you in snarky reviews of
bad movies. I chose movies that I had not seen in ages so I could get
a nice refresher on the less well-known films of the Full Moon
Entertainment library. I didn't expect so many of them to be this
bad. And NETHERWORLD is bad. Worse, it's boring. Horribly boring.
That sucks for both of us, because I have to try to come up with at
least four paragraphs worth of stuff to say about it and you have to
read it.
This isn't easy, by
the way. What is there to even say about NETHERWORLD? Nothing of
consequence happens during the entire movie. Do I describe just how
little happens or do I embellish the little that does happen in an
attempt to make it all sound interesting? The first five or so
minutes definitely makes it seem like this will be a corny but
entertaining ride. We have a young virgin visiting a brothel in
Louisiana. He gets a room with a Marilyn Monroe impersonator and
then…. Nothing. We cut instead to some random dude who wanders down
a corridor he's explicitly told not to wander down. He runs into a
woman named Delores, a gorgeous sex worker, who briefly flirts with
the man before he's overcome by his rapey, hormonal urges. He
attempts to force himself on Delores, but is stopped by a flying,
disembodied hand (kinda like the orbs from PHANTASM). It crushes his
head and there you go. There's your set-up. Sounds nifty, right?
But then we meet
Corey, a boring pretty boy with daddy issues, who has moved into the
family estate. Dad's dead, everyone treats him with equal parts
suspicion and reverence, and the local jailbait Southern belle takes
a liking to him. Corey discovers his father's journal (and yes, the
most interesting bits of the film comes from Corey just reading) and
learns that he can bring his father back to life using Delores' magic
(she's a witch or something). For the next 40 or so minutes, the only
plot we get is that Corey flirts with the underage sex bomb, then
falls for Delores, Delores uses magic to blind sex bomb's mother,
Corey is threatened by some slob named Bijou, Corey has a few brief
hallucinations, birds act as soul vessels for dead people, and the
prostitutes at the brothel might actually be dead historical figures
brought back to life. In any ordinary film, that might be enough, but
in this film, these plot elements are just kinda there. Nothing is
woven into an actual narrative. Hell, we don't even get a bad guy in
the film. There's no real villain.
Well, there is, but
the villain is only introduced during the final 15 minutes. I suppose
this sudden reversal was meant to have a THE WICKER MAN kind of
effect, but it simply doesn't work. Dad shows up in the spirit world,
his face caked in blue zombie make-up, and just basically proclaims
“ha! Gotcha! I'm the bad guy!” It isn't a twist ending, because
that would require the film to have been building towards a likely
outcome, and it isn't a surprise. It's just another half-thought out
plot development there to add to the inanity of the whole thing.
You would expect
more from a film steeped in voodoo and shot on location in Louisiana.
Unfortunately, both the voodoo lore and the location filming are
wasted. You'd get a more authentic and engaging experience just by
eating a box of Zatarain's while listening to any Louis Prima album.
Or you could just watch ANGEL HEART or read All Heads Turn When the
Hunt Goes By. Either would scratch that voodoo itch better than
NETHERWORLD. I honestly have no freaking clue what David Schmoeller,
the man responsible for PUPPET MASTER, CRAWLSPACE and TOURIST TRAP,
was even trying to accomplish with this film. I suppose he was trying
for something abstract and artsy, like a Lynch film, but all he ended
up creating is a total bore, a complete cinematic void that starts
slowly, proceeds glacially and ends like a great big fart in the
wind.
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