Necropolis: Legion is a 2019 American supernatural horror film directed by Chris Alexander (Girl with a Straight Razor; Blood Dynasty; Female Werewolf; Queen of Blood; Blood for Irina) from a screenplay co-written with Brockton McKinney.
The Full Moon Features-Rabidog Films production stars Ali Chappell (Girl with a Straight Razor; (The Abominations of Frankenstein; The Final Ride; Late Night Double Feature), Augie Duke (Blood Craft; The Black Room; Bad Kids Go to Hell) and Lynn Lowry (Pretty Fine Things; Model Hunger; Cat People; Shivers).
The movie is “a re-imagining of the 1986 Empire Pictures exploitation movie classic” Necropolis. It features practical effects provided by Canadian company The Butcher Shop. Costume design is by Beatriz Arevalo. Director Chris Alexander also provided the film’s soundtrack score.
Plot:
Satanic vampire sorceress Eva’s midnight rituals are interrupted when God-fearing local villagers burst into her lair and murder her.
A century later, motorcycle-riding writer Lisa moves into the same cabin where Eva was executed, with the intent to write a book about the supposedly haunted spot’s history. Soon, Lisa is having vivid, perverse dreams and slowly, surely, Eva begins taking over the young woman, using her body as a vessel to commit even more atrocities in the name of resurrecting an ancient monster from the underworld…
Reviews:
“The pacing is a slow burn, but it is methodical. The score by Charles Band is chilling and carries the weight of the film. Much of the film is silent as Lisa scours the property investigating for details. Duke’s acting is solid as she relies on her physical performance more than executing her lines.” Adventures in Poor Taste
“Necropolis: Legion never overstays its welcome and delivers slow burn moodiness and macabre fun in equal measures. This isn’t a Full Moon movie in the way a lot of people would expect from them, but fans of old school cult cinema and Italian horror will find lots to love here.” Brain Mutant
“The ending’s no good, but not so terrible that I felt I’d wasted my time with the rest of the movie. We spend the first fifty minutes or so getting to this point… and then we’re given a bunch of expository dialogue and a resolution that doesn’t make much sense.” Crypt Teaze
“It’s almost 20 minutes before Lisa shows up at the farm. We get a sequence, lasting more than six minutes, of her driving there, and wandering slowly through every room, before ending up at the graveyard in the back, containing the fakest, polystyrene gravestones I’ve seen outside the remainder aisle at Walmart. This sluggish approach persists almost the entire way…” Film Blitz
“If Jess Franco wrote a comic for Glenn Danzig’s Verotik, then turned it into a film it would be just like this putrid picture for sure! […] filled with comely babes, fever-dream logic and imagery, gorgeous lighting that is at times reminiscent of a Basil Gogos painting brought to life, and gobs of grizzly gore (practically realized).” Horror Fuel
“I liked the religious aspect mixed with the occult but the story is rather paper thin and stretched to the limit. The film has solid pacing and the slower scenes still help establish the story and build character development. Finally, the film has some great practical effects but don’t expect a gory tale.” Horror Society
Release:
Necropolis: Legion was released on multiple platforms, including Full Moon Streaming and Amazon Prime, in November 2019.
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Trailer:
