Ellory Elkayem (Eight Legged Freaks) gives us the fourth installment in the Return of the Living Dead (ROLD) series, subtitled “Necropolis.” However, the work issues the same respect to the viewer’s intellect that would be typically reserved for the undead themselves. One is left wondering if the director could be as easily dispatched as his zombies.
A group of teenage motocross riders are enjoying a leisurely day to themselves when Zeke (Elvin Dandel) wrecks his bike and is transported, not to a hospital, but to the Hybra Tech Corporation. Unbeknownst to the teens as they attempt a rescue mission, Hybra Tech is researching and conducting experiments on humans with Trioxin in hopes of creating zombie killing machines for tomorrow’s battlefields, of which Zeke is now a prime test subject. Even before entering the Hybra Tech building, the teens are confronted by zombies, former homeless people exposed to the chemical agent due to careless waste disposal on the company’s behalf. However, once inside, Julian Garrison (John Keefe, Proof) discovers a horrible secret as the group is met by tomorrow’s ubersoldier.
In ROLD tradition, Elkayem continues the plot fugue of the military’s use of Trioxin as the chemical agent seeps into places it shouldn’t in order to get the storyline moving. Also resuming ROLD lore (omitted in ROLD III), the victims of the undead do not return. However, new to the series, Necropolian zombies can easily be dispatched via a single bullet (not necessarily to the head) verses the more challenging disposal requirement of having to be incinerated (or electrocuted). We even have a wink and a nod to the original in a zombie requesting, “Send more security guards” during the film.
However, Necropolis treads in almost the exact same areas where Paul Anderson’s Resident Evil did three years before. We have an evil corporation, Hybra Tech (insert the Umbrella Corporation), complete with AT & T logo (insert cultural criticism), which has a zombie fallback if security is breeched (insert harsh criticism of malevolent business). Yet Elkayem’s film does nothing that Anderson’s didn’t succeed in doing the first go around (much like the relationship between O’Brannon’s original and Wiederhorn’s flaccid sequel). Yet I can’t help but like Necropolis a little more than I did Yuzna’s ROLD III because it has a plot. It’s not that I’m a plot miser necessarily but when the plot is dissolved, something needs to stand center stage (which Yuzna attempted to due to with his dilemma-riddled couple but was unable to epoxy the hole completely). However, this isn’t to say that Necropolis is wonderful by any means. Outside of the plot, the characters are typecast, the events coincidental, the enemies laughable, and the overall effect disappointing.
For example, we are introduced to Becky Carlton (Aimee-Lynn Chadwick, a Meg Ryan look-alike), who can’t ride a bicycle but, later in the film, is seen resting comfortably on a motocross bike. The coincidental nature of the narrative pushes the limits of the viewer’s ability to suspend disbelief further in that Katie Williams (Jana Kramer) just happens to work at Hybra Tech so that the writers didn’t have to put forth any effort in how the teens will discover the plight of their friend Zeke. What’s more, when the need arises and–alas it does–the group just happens to be trained and is proficient in rappelling. To top it off, we have a security guard, Hector (Serban Georgevici), who tells Katie she has a “nice pooper.”
My main complaint is that the film promises so much and follows through with so little. Beginning with the saliva-inducing title, we are never given a city of the dead, merely a building full of easily dispatched undead. Also, an ominous threat is constructed as we anticipate the uberzombies but, once revealed, they are just as quickly and easily disposed of as their inferior predecessors. Lastly, and perhaps representative of the production as a whole, is the fact that we are issued a scene where the characters have to resort to fist-a-cuffs with the undead, which they win with the greatest of ease. In many respects, my daily route is more challenging then the “predicaments” put forth in this film. Needless to say, I didn’t find the situations in the movie threatening and, more often then not, they bordered on being excessively derisory.
I don’t believe that Ellory Elkayem’s Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis could have been better than it was (well, maybe a smidge, but that’s hardly worth arguing at this point). To be quite honest, I think that Necropolis shouldn’t have been attempted because it never proves why we needed to revive a dormant franchise after twelve years. If corrupt business, underhanded government, and zombies are your thing, return–no run–to Paul Anderson’s Resident Evil, otherwise you’ll find yourself tossing the remote at Elkayem’s undead and, more than likely, inadvertently killing them between lethargic bites of Pringles.
-Egregious Gurnow
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- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
