Deadly Digit: Netherworld (1992)

My dear readers, though I cannot say my own experiences were identical to the ones I’ve seen portrayed in popular films and advertisements, I have been made to understand that the bond between a father and son can be full of meaning and import. Though his affection for me and my mother was undeniable, the gentleman who raised me was not always the most accessible of individuals. He had a habit of broodingly sweeping objects from tables as he passed and no matter what sounds emanated from within, even the closest of family was forbidden from entering his study when the light above the door glowed red. Yet even if we never became the sort of chummy duo that spent our afternoons bearing kites aloft and butchering freshly-caught trout, I still would have done absolutely anything for the man.

Nothing perks a fellow up quite like vanquishing death

Corey Thorton (Michael Bendetti) felt the very same of his recently departed father, Noah (Robert Sampson). Noah, the blasphemous old goat, felt mortality was a bit beneath him and after witnessing a ceremony used to briefly snatch the recently departed back from oblivion, he decides the same ceremony might be used to cure him of death entirely. The ritual is, however, not the most convenient of procedures and dear old father Thorton needs a living proxy to see that the necessary steps are taken. He entreats Corey to fulfill his wishes with a letter that also needlessly chronicles his sexual liaisons with a prostitute, detailing his seedy affair with words that no child should have to read, words like “sensual woman” and “sensual escapades.”

The quest to carry out his father’s will is by no means a straightforward one and it soon leads him to the company of Delores (Denise Gentile), the prostitute with whom his dead father was so cheerily familiar. It also leads him to a brothel populated by dead celebrities, a tribe of feather-growing bird people and a flying hand with a snake for a middle finger. Though the narrative does admittedly yield some low moments, each appearance of this chimeric blend of hand and serpent render these slip-ups meaningless as potential strikes against the quality of the film as a whole. The capable little creature, whose rudest digit defiantly takes the form of a snake in a movie otherwise preoccupied with birds, seems worthy of its own cinematic outing.

Netherworld operates under the Full Moon banner and it is a handsome addition to their stable of features. Like so many of their other films, this tale of familial devotion is unafraid to experiment and like all experiments, the results can be mixed. It may, for example, produce the questionable choice to cut between father and son bedding the same woman for several minutes at a time, driving home the connection so thoroughly that even the thickest of plebeians may regard it as an unnecessarily visual aid. But like so many of the movies that Charles Band has ushered into the world, it projects the scrappy charm of a young schoolboy who has hastily assembled his big presentation only the night before it was due. A spot of prosthetic here, a dash of gore there, add a few winning appearances by the aforementioned flying snake hand and one hardly notices any of the gaps.

Netherworld runs 87 minutes and is rated R for areas of strong horror violence, strong sensuality and language.