Back in 1986, Johan Vandewoestijne wrote and directed Lucker The Necrophagous, an extreme Belgian film that makes the necrophiliac theme its strong point. Grotesque, disturbing and profoundly sick, this low-budget film succeeds in being extremely revolting because of the scabrous paraphilia tackled upon which it folds a story with a sickening atmosphere, steeped in madness.
Distributed in '86 in both Holland and France through the director's own label, Lucker The Necrophagous had serious distribution problems that ended with the destruction of the original masters. Considered lost for decades, the film was reissued as a Director's Cut version only in 2009 thanks to the recovery of old VHS tapes.
Made a year before the better-known Nekromantik, the necrophilic theme of Lucker The Necrophagous might recall The third eye (1966), Beyond the Darkness (1979) and, especially Maniac (1980) by William Lustig. Silent and heinous, the perverse killer of Lucker The Necrophagous is, in some respects, very similar to Frank Zito, the character played by Joe Spinell in William Lustig's film.
In Lucker The Necrophagous in fact, we follow the sick exploits of John Lucker (Nick Van Suyt, who died by suicide a few years after starring in the film), a necrophilic and sadistic serial killer who acts in fits of madness. After spending three years in a psychiatric clinic, John Lucker fakes suicide and then escapes from the hospital facility where he is admitted. Driven by his obsession with death, the man will continue to terrorize, torture, kill and rape the lifeless bodies of other victims and will also hunt down Cathy Jordan (Helga Vandevelde), a woman who survived his attack.
Although it has flaws in directing and acting, Lucker The Necrophagous is a cult film of unparalleled appeal. In addition to displaying a penchant for gore, gore, and sadism, Johan Vandewoestijne's film is notable for its macabre and unsettling staging of death, which reaches the height of squalor in the sequence of the girl tied to the bed and murdered.
Spoiler start - Lucker will wait two weeks (time specified by the director in the interview featured on the TetroVideo DVD) before copulating with the now advanced decomposing corpse and tasting its putrid bodily fluids. According to Johan Vandewoestijne himself, for the realization of the putrefied body they were inspired by a photo of a corpse in the police archives to which they had access - End spoiler.
In the cast of Lucker The Necrophagous: Nick Van Suyt, Helga Vandevelde, Frank Van Laecke, Let Jodts, Carry Van Middel, Freek Neirynck, Martine Scherre, Tony Castillo and John Edwards.
Johan Vandewoestijne (among other things, also a producer of Rabid Grannies) co-wrote the screenplay for the film with John Kupferschmidt.
Lucker The Necrophagous will be released soon by TetroVideo in a special DVD Limited Edition containing the French version that has never appeared on home-video. The edition proposed by the label will be accompanied by the poster (edited by Tara Jabul).
TetroVideo will release Lucker The Necrophagous in a double version namely the Director's Cut in English and the Uncut in French. In addition, extras will include a lengthy interview with the director.
