Necrosis (2009) - 1/4

A group of friends head out to a cabin in the very mountains of the infamous Donner Party massacre. The creepy stories and/or spiritual energy of the place combined with their friend's failure to take his anti-psychosis medication leads to a murderous rampage.

Necrosis (AKA Blood Snow) is a film that tries to be a character-based drama with lots of build-up until the explosive moment. I like to support the little movies out there and Necrosis can be praised for trying to do something different, but the idea of 'build-up' here is an on-going argument about whether "Matt" will get to bed "Megan" punctuated by a few jumpscares courtesy the hallucinations of "Jerry." That might not be so bad if these people weren't so bland. They are every phony, mugging yuppie you've ever met at a party you really didn't want to be at. It's not even the actors' faults here: they're probably playing their characters right. And y'know what, I sympathise with Jerry. If I had to spend a few days in a cabin with these people, from his shrewish girlfriend to her inauthentic yuppie friends, I might stop taking my medication too.

Jerry, incidentally, is the only non-Caucasian in the cast, making this film seem a tad xenophobic. The role of Jerry is the most complex and the top actor in the cast is Asian James Kyson-Lee (from some TV series called "Heroes"), so it's normal he'd have the role. It still comes off as xenophobic. And that's not even getting to the punishment meted out to the sick Jerry at the end, which we're supposed to cheer, I imagine, as the white survivors embrace.

The editing and cinematography are somewhat subpar, but the writing isn't bad, insofar as flaky yuppies is what the writer wanted to capture. These people are pretty vapid, but they don't deserve to die or anything. And I will admit, since I was expecting a cheesy supernatural thriller, I was surprised by the turnout. It's a worse film than I expected, but a better film than the first thirty minutes led me to believe. Cameos by Michael Berryman and Mickey Jones are nice, but not enough to save the picture from being as vapid as its yuppies. Ultimately, avoid Necrosis, as there are much better 2009/2010 b-movies, like The Graves, which I recently reviewed, and Red Velvet.

Nevertheless, if you wanted to read a theme into Necrosis, the Power of Place would be a fascinating one. Places do resonate with their history, to some extent; the way they're treated influences the way others will come to treat them, and so on, until they develop this aura. The aura is, of course, in the minds of people, but so is the notion of 'place' as opposed to 'space'; placehood is defined by human perceptions of space. The sense of place combined acted as a catalyst to Jerry's psychosis, you see. So there you go. If you've seen the film, the least you can do is read something into it to justify having wasted your time. It's what I do.