Thursday , March 28 2024
If ever there was a reason for to not visit Belgium, it’s Lucker The Necrophagous

DVD Review: Lucker The Necrophagous

If ever there was a reason for me to not want to visit Belgium for the rest of eternity, it’s a movie like Lucker The Necrophagous, a no-budget, gross-out, grey market splatterfest made by a seemingly disturbed 25-year-old film student named Johan Vandewoestijne.

Our trifle little excuse for a motion picture begins with serial killer/rapist John Lucker (Nick Van Suyt) heavily sedated in a sparsely-employed private clinic, having been confined there after his capture by the police. Before his incarceration, Lucker managed to murder eight women and had his way with their corpses — quite the charmer (that’s real presidential nominee material right there).

Breaking away from his restraints, Lucker quickly finds himself killing again and is soon on the loose in the city, where a local prostitute makes the mistake of taking him back to her apartment. After securing her to her bed, Lucker slaughters the poor girl and then sits idly aside for four weeks watching her body decompose. And then, it happens, the moment that should place Vandewoestijne’s name on the no-fly list of every civilized country — the infamous scene of necrophilia that made Lucker The Necrophagous a hit with gorehounds worldwide (amusingly enough, Vandewoestijne’s "director’s cut" proves his mathematical genius is equal to his moviemaking abilities when the newly placed caption following the prostitute’s demise reads “Four Weeks Later” while her friends mention that they haven’t seen the girl in at least one week)!

Even without that repulsive segment, Lucker The Necrophagous is still a bad movie, with the acting, dubbing, special effects, music, lighting, cinematography — you name it! — amateur at best and the story is completely non-existent. Put simply, Lucker is an abomination in every sense of the word (the producer of this monstrosity destroyed every copy of the film he could get his hands on — a feat that obviously wasn’t entirely successful but still should have been enough to award the man sainthood).

Synapse Films, the company that was not content with letting this one die the painful, lonesome death it deserved, brings us a matted 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation. Seeing as how Vandewoestijne (aka John Desert) had to piece this “director’s cut” together via the few video materials that he could find, the (crappy) picture quality varies from scene to scene, while the “restored” English dubbed mono stereo audio is loud and irritating.

As to why anyone would want to include special features on a film like this is beyond me, but Synapse nevertheless has gone the extra mile to include a (matted) version of the original 74-minute cut that was culled from a Dutch video release (burned-in subtitles included). Also available on this release is “Lucker: The Story Beyond The Film” (36:13), a featurette that interviews Johan Vandewoestijne and gives the fat little balding man a chance to discuss about the project’s origin ('twas a case of revenge against the Flemish Film council!), its history, restoration, his career, and what-not. The featurette also compares the director’s cut to the original cut (keep a lookout for the “Ducth Subtitles” typo) and makes note of the deleted “video store” scene from the original cut.

Yes, it’s a dumb movie, and while some of you might enjoy it (and please stay the fuck away from me and my children if you do), the rest of you most definitely will not.

Long, drawn-out scenes of a man walking, staring, and stalking… helpless, hapless, chained women screaming non-stop for up to five minutes solid… gore, gore, and more gore… sleep tight kids, assured by the knowledge that Vandewoestijne wants to make a sequel.

About Luigi Bastardo

Luigi Bastardo is the alter-ego of a feller who loves an eclectic variety of classic (and sometimes not-so-classic) film and television. He currently lives in Northern California with four cats named Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Margaret. Seriously.

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