Confessions of a Necrophile Girl (2021) Review
Confessions of a Necrophile Girl purports to be the story of Karen Greenlee, who was arrested in 1979 for stealing a hearse and having sex with the occupant. She eventually confessed to a double-digit body count of literal bodies. As is usually the case with films like this however writer/director Domiziano Cristopharo (Vore Gore, Nightmare Symphony) has taken a few actual incidents from history, updated them to the present, and woven a new story around them.
Confessions of a Necrophile Girl opens with Karen (Angela del Regno) in a bathtub, having a breakdown and graphically slashing her wrists. From there the film moves to Karen recording herself talking to the camera about people’s reactions to her after she was caught, how she was fascinated with the dead even as a child, and how she ended up working in the funeral industry.
The rest of the film follows this basic framework. Karen talks about her life, her philosophies about life and death, going to therapy as part of her sentence, and similar things. Then we see short segments, mostly of her preparing bodies for funerals and having her way with them. We do get to see a dream where she’s the dead body on the receiving end of someone else’s attentions and one of her as a zombie.
If that doesn’t sound particularly scary, it isn’t. Unlike the director’s previous foray into necrophilia, eROTik, there’s no murderous Jeffrey Dahlmer influenced subplot to the story and what jumps there are come from the two dream sequences. Confessions of a Necrophile Girl aims to disturb the viewer with its rather matter-of-fact approach to its subject matter. For the most part, it doesn’t even try to gross out the viewer. For the most part, the bodies that she deals with are in reasonably good shape.
It’s not until near the end, when the film offers a different version of how Karen was caught, that the film ventures into Necromantik levels of decayed cadavers. The scene is certainly effective on a gross-out level, but part of me thinks the actual events would have made a memorable set piece and what they substituted was used as a scene elsewhere in the film. The actual final scene is a shock in and of itself, so the film wouldn’t lack a sting in its tail either. I suppose however that funeral homes may not have wanted to rent their hearse out and be associated with a plot like this.
As I mentioned, Confessions of a Necrophile Girl doesn’t have a lot of gross-out scenes. But that doesn’t mean it’s an easy watch. The effects are very well done and the wrist-slitting scene is painful to watch. There are also plenty of assorted wounds on the various corpses that come under our heroine’s care. It’ll take a strong stomach to get through the film without looking away, something anyone familiar with Cristopharo’s work will be expecting.
Those looking for a simple gorefest will be disappointed though. While it’s hardly elevated horror, there’s a bit more emphasis on Karen and what’s going on in her head than one might expect. It’s not as deep as Silence of the Lambs, but Confessions of a Necrophile Girl has a few points to make, including one about being true to one’s nature.
Definitely not for everyone, Confessions of a Necrophile Girl is a film that will leave you feeling distinctly creeped out and probably wanting a shower. Or maybe wanting to listen to Alice Cooper’s “I Love the Dead”. Either way, it’s stomach-turning, thought-provoking and worth seeing.
Confessions of a Necrophile Girl will be available from TetroVideo. You can check their Facebook page for more information. And if you’re looking to gig up a few more films like it, FilmTagger might have some titles for you.