Nekrotronic (2018)
Evil Gets Rebooted
Ever think that phones are turning people into brain dead zombies? How about soulless husks? Ever think it would be cool to take all that trend of phone games with “Go” in the title and make it mixed with evil intentions? Well, I don’t know if any of that is what is intended here, but tonight’s movie pitches action, spook, and a lot of demonic internet soul sucking full of bright colors and loud music - and what am I but a man who enjoys watching such things? When your cell phone needs to be exercised, it’s time to call the Nekrotronic.
Sub par pun-line there, but with a little luck that’s the worst thing on display here. Our plot is very similar to any “chosen one” sort of plot out there. Take a person who seems to be a nobody, make them a somebody, and then let the story flow from being nobody, dealing with not being nobody, all the way to being the somebody. In this case, that something is a necromancer - here not used as evil sorcerers binding and reanimating the souls and corpses of the dead to do their evil bidding but instead people with magic in their blood with the purpose of defeating demons since ancient times. It’s like witch hunters, or vampires vs werewolves, or little kid King Arthur - taking some fantasy and mixing it into modern things. The bigger twist here is the inclusion of more sci fi elements, which isn’t really a huge twist (Underworld also did that). With demons and the whole topic of souls also comes plenty of ghosts - although outside of the sidekick and spooky wraiths, most the ghosts are more there as a symptom of the movie’s plot gimmick than it is something that really gets played around with a lot.
The plot isn’t going to offer a whole lot of surprised to people I feel. Perhaps if you don’t consume a lot of media like movies and books than they may be able to surprise you with a few things - it’s entirely possible. When a twist could happen, it’s usually contained in a feeling of Chekhov’s Gun where it was already set up quite well earlier and is finally coming around to be used. There shouldn’t be a lot of confusion here, even if things might feel a little out of the blue at times, for if nothing else the soul reason that even if not in every detail almost everything is explained. You might not get the specifics behind why some people have magic blood and demon battling powers, or why most the nekromancers run around using guns instead of said magic powers - or even the specifics of how someone goes about uploading a demon into the internet and nekromancers are just jacking in like it’s the matrix. Even with all that not getting heavily spelled out to the watcher, it doesn’t end up feeling confusing because the movie itself surrounding those ideas doesn’t feel overly complicated so one’s brain never calls it out as needing more detail. If that doesn’t happen though, I can see where some people wouldn’t enjoy it as much because of that though, so there is that.
The actors do a pretty good job here. It might not be all-star quality, but it is much better than fan-grade or budget quality. The added bonus exists of if it consisting of folks with varying levels of accent - and it’s always fun from an enjoyment side to have that for me. Of course, the negative side of that is people who struggle with accents light or heavy will probably struggle a little with understanding some of the characters - I didn’t have an issue myself but it bears pointing out. For the most part, I’d wager only two of the actors feel as though they have a solid amount of accent that would even come close to become a struggle point - with the rest of the major cast being relatively lightweight in audible accent. The balancing around the lines is well done, making it pretty easy to hear them and their accents, even if action or music is kicking up to the front.
Internet to die for.
When it feels like the actors aren’t perhaps hitting it out of the park, sometimes it feels like it might just be the writing direction. I’d iterate that it’s not always that feeling - sometimes it feels like the actor is just being real strange about their delivery. The main does a pretty good job of having a large range of emotions throughout the movie, such as scared, happy, and confused as heck. The others perhaps don’t have quite as much a range, but a ton of time isn’t really set on total development of all characters - it’s pretty much the heroes story. It’s at least a little bit newer in telling enough to include some female heroes, and it does play with that a few times - but outside of the main there isn’t a ton of room for the characters to develop if they really wanted to, considering one’s a ghost and the other two were born into the old demon-punching lifestyle. Of the batch of them, arguably the worst on screen presence is the main villain. Some of it is the just mentioned weirdness of some deliveries, but it’s also a bit the over-hamming of deliveries. It doesn’t exactly fight the feel of the movie, as it’s pretty corny to begin with, but it doesn’t exactly emit tendrils of terror as an opponent either.
Until you get to the effects that is. Although some look perhaps a bit basic energy-waves and the likes, when it comes to the baddy suits it looks great. I guess in all honesty I should state when it comes to any suit it looks great, as the anti-possession suits also look like some half-breed between Hellgate: London Templar and Tron. The basic possessed look very zombie-esque, complete with random and no-reasoning bleeding. The fancier “3D printed” demons get some pretty sweet looking designs as well - although you really only get a decent look at one during the final battle. The run of the mill costumes all match modern times, which although appropriately bland does it’s job of making it feel like a modern world - but the real fun is in the elaborate costumes. I don’t doubt that a lot of things probably also had some computer touch-ups to help things out, especially any ghost or wraith floating about, but none of it ever looks really sub-par considering it easily could have been something that just straight-up played into B-movie budgets.
The rest of the audio department does a good job as well. You get some nice heavy songs in there to get the blood pumping, but it also extends over to a lot of the sound effects having a good amount of punch to help satisfy on screen events. It might not stick around too much afterwards, but it does its roll quite well without taking over. The humor in the movie largely comes from either situational moments or the side-kick character, but they do a decent job of surprising you with moments that could swing either way between a laugh or a shock. Of course, it also hits all the low parts, even starting off with a covered in sewage joke - so as always mileage will vary. Of course, some humor might come unintentionally from line deliveries as well, but despite the movie trying to have it’s semi-serious plot going on, the levity floating about keeps you from getting to stuck-in.
That’s some hell-a good milk.
This movie was about as enjoyable as I expected. What surprised me was actually the costume department more than anything else, as I didn’t really expect to have so many actual costumes and makeup getting thrown around. The acting can be mixed, and the plot might not be too many steps off from every beat you’d anticipate, but the occasional surprise exists in it’s run and despite it being such a basic thought path the plot is interesting enough to want to watch without being so much so that your brain turns fully on and ruins other aspects. Worth a rental, although perhaps violence and language should be checked for sensibilities.