Diary of a Necromancer – review

Director: Alex DiSanto

Release date: 2017

Contains spoilers

In some respects, you have to admire a teen filmmaker crafting films (just straddling the line between short film and feature, as this does) but, whilst I admire the concept, the film itself contains things that demote this from B all the way down to Z. I do try to be constructive in my reviews but this does many things very wrong and I also have to point those out too.

Vampires, it seems, love to keep diaries. Ah, you might counter, this is a necromancer’s diary – the title states so. That is true but our necromancer is also a vampire. A good vampire, as it transpires, but a vampire nonetheless.

Alex DiSanto as Asher

The film starts with some establishing shots, which actually worked rather well, and we get a voice over from Asher (Alex DiSanto). He is a necromancer who is 350 years old but looks forever 17. He can speak to the dead but seems disconnected from life and intends to die, once he has taken care of some dark forces. Its all well and good but I noticed two things. Firstly, DiSanto didn’t have the presence physically to pull off the gravitas of a 350-year-old-despite-his-youthful-appearance. Secondly, and through the film, his delivery was flat – and this might be because he is more suited to being behind the camera or because it is hard for a director to direct themselves critically.

Emma Fulton as Lily

So, Asher helps out at a farm run by Harvey (Gerry DiSanto) and Anna (Jean Keel). They don’t bat an eyelid at the minor who is a drifter, fails to go to school and works their land. They are expecting their niece Lily (Emma Fulton) for a visit – she’s Asher’s (apparent) age and just moved to the area (later backstory mentions her parents, who are always fighting, making a last-ditch effort to save their marriage). Lily mentions being bullied by three goth girls at her new school and they are identified as the Deaton Girls. On a technical level there were cuts where a scene had obviously been filmed in different takes and the subjects jumped where the takes were spliced due to continuity failure, as well as wind distorting the sound and massively unnatural dialogue.

the Deaton Girls

That night, at the Deaton Girls’ place, the girls – Ivy (Jennifer McNamara), Rose (Vala Rogers) and Violet (Riley Anderson) – are doing drugs, booze and piercing lips. They notice Lily at a window and one, Rose, chases her down, cuts her hand, knocks her out and is about to stab her when a noise scares her off. It is Asher. When Lily awakens he basically tells her all that is going on – he’s a necromancer, and a vampire, how he got turned, how he met the three before in the 80s and how they are cannibalistic witches (who eat people to gain youth, knowledge and power – so vampiric witches). She asks him to train her as an apprentice and he agrees – it is so unnaturally shorthand it is untrue.

good sfx

That’s the lead into the main plot and we get fluffed lines of dialogue and the actor repeating the same line, but in film not in a blooper reel and, later still, blooming awful fight scenes – the tussle with sword and axe is just painful and always one swift kick in the genitals from resolution. However, as I mentioned, I am always looking for something constructive and positive to say and for that I must spoil a later plot point. Essentially the witches catch and eat Asher and then he reforms and is reborn, coming out of Ivy’s stomach in a practical effect that actually worked really well.

the kiss of death

Lore-wise, well there is very little. Apparently eating a vampire won’t kill it but sunlight will – Asher casts a spell each day to protect himself. His sire gave him a magic bottle of blood and he has never found a blood as good since but also tends to feed on animals. He is a master of the kiss of death – sucking the blood through the mouth, rather than the neck. That was about it lore wise (other than necromantic/witchcraft bits and bobs that don’t concern us really).

Not great at all – but at least one superb practical effect. 2 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US