Did Mick Nards and Vince Roth create a piece of reprehensible garbage or an artistic piece of underground horror? This is the question I kept asking myself while viewing the infamous Nekro short. I sat there while its repulsive horror assaulted me, both psychologically and visually. In its short length, it's guaranteed to be the sickest, most vile 15 minutes of short film nihilism you will ever experience. You won't believe your eyes are being subjected to the utter dementia the filmmakers created. At the same time, you won't be able to take them off the screen. When certain films take entire running times to build towards their most controversial sequences, Nards and Roth prove it can be done in such a succinct amount of time. Like Nacho Cerda's Aftermath , Nekro exposes the cruel, savage world of atrocities of death, murder and necrophilia. The main difference is the manner in which they are presented. Visuals in Cerda's masterpiece are strikingly beautiful, whereas Nards and Roth's visuals bring the proper grittiness and stark realism to the repellent subject matter. This is grim and ugly. It gives the term "underground horror" a meaning.

The film opens up to the street of a seemingly peaceful suburban neighborhood. A few cars pass by in time, though there is not much activity on the street. Soon, a van slowly makes its way down the street and pulls into a driveway. Sporting a black hoody, a perturbed and strange-looking man (Mick Nards) hops out. He approaches the back of the van, then pulls out his incapacitated victim, and he drags her body into his house. It's a dirty, creaky suburban home. The killer drags her on his fragile staircase and in the struggle with bringing her upstairs, he breaks off the railing of the staircase, in a rage of frustration. The helpless victim is left inside an empty room, where the killer has placed a long sheet of plastic across the small room. Still dazed and incapacitated, the woman lays and waits for her abductor to return, unbeknownst of the perverse atrocity in store for her.

Eventually, the maniacal killer rapidly forces his way back into the room with the intention to murder his helpless victim. Armed with a butcher knife, he repeatedly stabs her and he does so without the single hint of mercy. Covered in her blood, the onslaught of violence is only just the beginning as he performs immoral sexual acts on her corpse. A horrifying image, and in its visuals, Nekro is an artistic addition to the horror/exploitation genre. There is a striking sequence with the woman left by her abductor in the creaky, old room. With the blinds of the room shut, the only natural light is of an ominous blue light. The blue highlights the terror and menace in the air, and it makes for a precisely adept juxtaposition with the bloodshed. Cinematography is as grainy as "found footage" and it lends to the gritty realism of the piece. Combined with ferocious apprehension, the singular use of color establishes Nards and Roth for their attention to detail.

In its hardcore display of graphic violence and explicit sex, Nekro is unflinchingly depraved. Those who are offended by the repugnant themes will not want to admit it, but the presence of talent pervades the proceedings. What is most significant is sound, and Ultra Deviant provided a mixture of sound so diabolical and sinister, it sounds satanic. The audio mapping is distinctive, as the layered mixture of the victim's uncontrollable moans and screams and the killer's pleasured grunts serves as further assault on the viewer's senses. Mick Nards accordingly knows how to play a maniacal killer, delving in the perverse evil lurking inside the mind of a deranged psychopath. After having rough sex with the corpse, his character rests gently on her chest as if he was having an intimate moment with a significant other. There were times when Nards reminded me of Joe Spinell's Frank Zito from mad insanity and intensity. That a short film like Nekro can get under my skin so much only proves the impact of In Hell Productions.

In conclusion, the answer of my question: Nekro is an artistic piece of underground horror.

RATING:
MOVIE: "Nekro"