Netherworld (1992) — Triskaidekafiles

NETHERWORLD

WRITERS: Story by Billy Chicago and Charles Band
Screenplay by Billy Chicago

DIRECTOR: David Schmoeller

STARRING: Michael Bendetti as Corey Thornton
Denise Gentile as Delores
Anjenette Comer as Mrs. Palmer
Holly Floria as Diane Palmer
Robert Sampson as Noah Thornton
Alex Datcher as Mary Magdalene
Robert Burr as Beauregard Yates, Esq.

QUICK CUT: A young man travels to Louisiana to inherit his father’s estate, and while there he learns more about and reconnects, with the father he never knew

THE MORGUE

Corey - Our heroic lead, who sits around and reads a lot. He seems to just be going through the motions as everyone points him where he needs to be.

Diane - An underage woman who catches Corey’s eye, and she seems more than willing to encourage that.

Delores - A seductive siren at the local brothel who knows the secrets of death and rebirth. Bonus, take a drink every time I misspell her name.

Yates - Corey’s father’s lawyer, a fine Southern gentleman, and upstanding member of the community. He may have some dark secrets waiting to be discovered.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! September comes to an end, and we are taking a trip under another Full Moon Feature, and traveling into the...Netherworld! This also marks the final movie in the Full Moon Classics volume 1 set which, along with v2, I have been working on getting through since Trisk began. An end of an era, today...

The movie opens up in Tonks bar, which is filled with chicks. No, not women, actual chickens. That has to be a health code violation.

A kid wanders in, meets a woman who calls herself Mary Magdalene, and she takes him down to the Bordello of Blood to bang Marilyn Monroe. This place is using up all the same letter names faster than a People Who Know Superman meeting.

The Buffalo wings are guaranteed fresh, at least.

There is a door they pass by with a big KEEP OUT sign and...what's the over under on how long it takes to...oop, never mind, already doing it.

A french dude who wasn't done letting the bon temps roule ducks down the hall to check out the mysterious door. On the other side, he finds various odd sights of horror and curiosity...what is this, a whorehouse or a funhouse?

He eventually finds Delores, and he is intrigued by her beauty as much as she is intrigued by his curiosity. Being a brothel, she offers him some fun in trade, but he has nothing to trade...but she will accept payment in form of his very soul.

She wants to cast a love spell on Gambit, but he's much more interested in screwing her, tosses her down to the bed, forcing her to do her best impression of the Grudge.

Meanwhile, there's this stone hand that comes to life, flies down the hallways, and grabs him by the face. Because why not?

Tendrils come out, wrap around his face, and he begins to transform. Apparently into a bird, if we can go by what Delores says to her other birds. I'm calling it a death, and regretting we don't get to see the body horror.

Meanwhile, Corey Thornton rows into the Nawlins swampland, narrating something about how he lost his father and he's coming to deal with that. And something about a man of plant material in the swamps, but I think that got cancelled...

He soon meets Beauregard Yates ESQUIRE, and I love when credits in a movie include the *esquire*. And he refers to Corey as Young Man Thornton, as does everyone else in the movie. They try and make it sound ominous, but ultimately it is...nothing. It started to give me vibes of the Case of Charles Dexter Ward, down to pointing out they look alike, and thinking there might be a swap with his dead dad, but we’ll see.

They pull up on his father's, now Corey's, estate, and they introduce the love interest, Diane. She is pointedly called jailait, so, ew.

Corey also receives a letter before Yates leaves, and in it, his father details a mysterious coven that had the powers to bring back the dead. So uh, way to bury the lede there, movie. And this is also his dad's plan, which just played more into my Lovecraftian wants.

Oh, and Daddy Thornton refers to them as the Bird People. So. We've got tons of bird imagery, and resurrection, and not a Phoenix to be seen? Not even a crow? Le sigh.

After a vision of Delores leads Corey around by his dick and he finds Jailbait in the shower, he apologises later and then she shows him around to exposit. She also tells him not to go to Tonks. So naturally...

Before we get there, we meet a grimy large man named Bijou who threatens Corey with a knife, and implies some stuff about wanting to help bring Daddy Thornton back.

So we end up at Tonks, meet Bijou again who gets SUPER creepy, which is saying something for a man who threatened to filet Corey ten minutes ago, and insists that Corey dance with him. But he eventually reveals he's just fucking with the kid, and they have some drinks to talk about dear old dead.

Corey sees Delores pick up a client and follows her, hoping to get better and less slovenly answers from her. Also, anything to get away from Bijou.

The client has other ideas though, draws a gun on Corey, and chases him off. The stone hand comes back to life though, grabs the guy's face, and does what it does.

When the next day comes, Corey finds Jailbait waiting for him, and she takes him to his dad's mausoleum. They chat a bit, and he tells her that dad wants to be resurrected. Normal first date conversation over your dad’s corpse.

Meanwhile, Momma Jailbait is performing some rituals over a beating heart, and when Corey passes out reading his dad's journals, she shows up with her cross...with a hidden dagger! She musta worked at Splatter University.

But that's when Delores shows up, to stop Momma Jailbait from interfering. The woman places a curse on her, blinding her with science, and taking her out of the movie, for the most part.

Corey heads back to Tonks, and has to wait for Delores, so ends up talking to Marilyn. And there is a SLIGHT implication that these are the real Mary and Marilyn, back from the dead and forced to be prostitutes. But I take that with a grain of salt so big, Carthage would be terrified..

The poor girl is trying SO HARD to be Marilyn and over enunciate and her mouth is so exaggerated. I almost feel sorry for her. Go get the girl from Fade to Black.

Well, before this becomes Voodoo Death Becomes Her, Delores is ready, and Corey heads on down to see her.

So we end up with extended scenes of flirtations and sex in exchange for supposed knowledge to bring back the dead, but they kinda skim over THAT part.

Jailbait sneaks into Corey's room later, and discovers...well, I THOUGHT it was a leaf the first time, but upon rewatching, it's actually a green parrot feather. So there goes a whole slew of jokes. This moive is for the birds.

Blind Lemon Momma wakes up, and Diane hurries to help her. Giving Corey time to wake up himself, and pluck the feather out like it's a green hair.

Beauregard Yates Esquire wanders back into the plot to pick up a bird from Tonks, and deliver it to Corey "Theodore" Thornton, because it needs to be close to him. No real explanation, just...for reasons.

We hit a weird slowdown point where everyone is just kinda wandering around waiting for plot to happen. There's already been a lot of sitting and reading, so this is kinda tedious. For such a short movie, where the plot isn't bad, it is remarkably slow. It is definitely missing something.

Aww man why did I take my eyes off the fridge?

But finally, Corey heads back to Tonks to get the plot back on track, and bring his father back. He asks if he is ready and uh, NO! We haven't seen any teachings, no preparations, no learnings! And that is what's missing, I think.

Corey goes into a trance or something, wanders around a void, and looks for his father's soul to bring it back to the land of the living. Look, I know it SOUNDS like Corvid, but he is no crow.

To try and keep things interesting, Petrous Dextrous wakes up and flies around a bit too.

Corey feels like something is wrong, especially when dad starts making out with him. Dad checks out his son like a prized horse, and oh. Oh no. The power to command life and death is a pack of lies. Shock.

Yes, the way to bring back dad is by taking Corey's body. So while it's not QUITE the Charles Dexter Ward, but it does come frighteningly close.

This is all even a surprise to Delores though, so that's a kinda nice twist they don't do much with. I like that the Cuckoodoo is actually good, but dad had his own designs.

So there's a lot of handwaving (hah) as Jailbait's love somehow frees Corey from his mental bondage, he touches a stone, and the flying hand comes to his aid. I guess!

Corey ducks out of the way of the hand at the last second, and it glomps onto dear old dad to keep him in the Netherworld.

We cut to sometime later, with Yates bringing ANOTHER bird to Corey, and this apparently contains dad's soul, as the movie ends.

Oh, and there is one last WTF scene after the credits where some zombies are drinking the green alcohol we see throughout the movie and ask what the hell it is and I DON'T KNOW! I don't know anything anymore!!

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Honestly, not half bad. Yeah, it looks like a VHS rip, and it probably is, but it could’ve been worse.

Audio: Solid enough, for what this is. They play a lot of music, and that sounds decent.

Sound Bite: “And who’s that?” “That, is Jailbait, Mr. Thornton.”

Body Count: Shockingly low.

1- 13 minutes, and Frenchie gets stone handed in the face. But did he die?
2 - Other guy gets stonehanded by snakefingers. 42 minutes
3 - Dad dies again or stays dead or something, but is a bird.

Best Corpse: Gotta be random dude, since we don’t get much from the others.

Blood Type - C+: Not a lot, not a lot of makeup effects, but the few times there are attacks, there is some decent amount of blood. And I am a sucker for a good eye gouging.

Sex Appeal: No surprise, a brothel has no shortage of nudity.

Drink Up! Every time someone uses the moniker, Young Man Thornton

Movie Review: While I clearly mocked the heck out of this, I actually rather like it. I love the Southern Gothic vibe, I love the mystery, I love that it’s using it’s own lore, even if it is Cuckoodoo. It’s well made, and hinges more on atmosphere than outright in your face horror, and it mostly pulls that off. It does tend to linger a bit too long, and I’d like a few shifts in the plot, but for the most part, really solidly made. Three out of five bird feathers.

Entertainment Value: I actually wish it was a little more cheesy, because the proceedings are dripping in so much seriousness, it could’ve used the cheese. You get a bit of that with Bijou, but not enough. The death hand is fascinating and has some good moments, and I wish there was more of that, and more about the mythology, and there’s just not enough weirdness. Two out of five finger snakes.