That of necrophilia is one of the themes that haunts some of the horror genre cinematography. Revolting, obscene, and sleazy, it is a paraphilia that is inserted from time to time through shock sequences or more simply as a thread in stories about psychological declines and characters now adrift.
As early as 1962, Riccardo Freda dealt with the necrophilic theme in the remarkable Gothic horror film The Horrible Dr. Hichcock. In 1966, Nino Guerrieri also touched on the morbid theme with "The third eye" but over the years then would accumulate several films on necrophilia including cult extreme films.
Below the best horror titles that deal most incisively and indelibly with necrophilia.
Aftermath (Spain - 1994) by Nacho Cerdà .
Plot: a girl's body ends up at the morgue for an autopsy.
A pungent, icy atmosphere characterizes this medium-length film whose viewing triggers revulsion and disgust.
Abused and torn apart, the human body becomes the center of attraction of a sad spectacle about death.
Beyond the Darkness (Italy - 1979) by Joe D'amato.
Plot: a young animal taxidermist loses his girlfriend prematurely. Obsessed and unable to grieve, he exhumes the young woman's body, takes her home, and on her body performs the ritual of embalming in order to be able to stop her decay over time.
In this magnificent remake of The Third Eye, the story has a decidedly more gruesome and explicit feel than Nino Guerrieri's film.
Deranged (Canada, United States - 1974) by Jeff Gillen and Alan Ormsby.
Plot: mother's death psychologically upsets middle-aged farmer Ezra Cobb, who begins desecrating corpses in a cemetery and killing.
Disturbing and unhealthy, Deranged is based on the exploits of serial killer Ed Gein, who inspired such films as "Psycho," "Don't Open That Door" and "Silence of the Lambs." The film also remains memorable for the realism with which the madness of the protagonist, an example of a "fetishistic" necrophile (a person who removes objects or body parts from a corpse without engaging in sexual intercourse), is depicted.
TetroManiac: eROTik (Italy - 2019) by Domiziano Cristopharo.
Loosely based on Jeffrey Dahmer (1960 - 1994), TetroManiac: eROTik is a depiction of an indefinable horror in which life and love merge with death, instilling in the viewer a heavy sense of oppression.
TetroManiac: eROTik delves into the necrophilic theme by insisting, with a touch of pornography and without taboos, on morbid sexual relationships but also on the stages of decomposition.
The most extreme along with the two Nekromantik.
Love Me Deadly (USA - 1972) by Jacques La Certe.
Plot: Haunted by childhood trauma, Lindsay develops a fetishistic obsession with death and dead bodies, morbidly observed and 'desired' during the varied funerals of strangers she never fails to attend.
Film that narrates, in a rather linear and composed manner, the descent into perversion. Love Me Deadly has the merit of juxtaposing the sphere of morbidity with the more purely erotic by becoming an obscure precursor to a genre whose visual and narrative potential was at the time still largely unexplored.
Lucker The Necrophagous (Belgium - 1986) by Johan Vandewoestijne.
Plot: after spending three years in a psychiatric clinic, necrophilic serial killer John Lucker fakes suicide and then escapes from the hospital facility where he is admitted to continue torturing, killing and raping the lifeless bodies of other victims.
Extreme Belgian film that makes the necrophiliac theme its strong point. Grotesque, disturbing, and deeply sick, this low-budget film succeeds in its intent to be extremely revolting. The extreme precursor on the theme, produced a year before Nekromantik.
Macabre (Italy - 1980) by Lamberto Bava.
Plot: Jane Baker's lover dies decapitated in an automobile accident. A year later the woman moves to her beloved's home to feed again on their memories.
Macabre is imbued with an unhealthy atmosphere in which tragic and disturbing sequences come to life.
Definitely one of Lamberto Bava's best films.
Maniac (USA - 1980) by William Lustig.
Plot: a crazed psychopath named Frank follows, rapes, and scalps a number of girls. Haunted by the memory of his mother, the man surrounds himself with mannequins that he adorns with scalps extirpated from young victims.
The director demonstrates an above-average grasp of the thriller mechanism and packs one of the most unhealthy and crude (because of the disturbing content) works of the 1980s.
Played by Joe Spinell, also the protagonist of Maniac Is a "fetishistic" necrophile.
Nekromantik (Germany - 1987) by Jörg Buttgereit.
Plot: Robert works in a corpse recovery business. He and his wife Betty share an unhealthy passion for the horrific and the dead-so much so that the man brings home a body that will become their sex object.
Unhealthy story of sick sex within which there are veins of abysmal sadness, madness and decadent poetry.
Nekromantik 2 (Germany - 1991) by Jörg Buttgereit.
Plot: Monika, a young nurse, steals from the cemetery the corpse of Robert, the necrophiliac boy who died in the first Nekromantik.
Jörg Buttgereit once again brings his poetics of death back to the screen by taking greater care of the direction and committing himself to creating a macabre and decadent atmosphere in which all the elements (splatter, drama, grotesque, romantic) intertwine to create a black and oppressive mood.
Films of recent years also include the impeccable remake Maniac, the zombie movie Deadgirl, Thanatomorphose (an example of "self-inflicted" necrophilia), the horror comedy Nina Forever and the drama-thriller The Corpse of Anna Fritz.
