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Sigh.
Imagine if your worst Warhammer fanfic had a baby with your grossest Halloween nightmare—and then someone rubbed it all over your face. That, in a nutshell, is Nekromanteia. On paper: Fifth Doctor, Peri, and Erimem land in a spooky corporation-ruled necropolis with necromancer witches, evil space big biz, body parts flying, and a looming apocalypse. What actually happens: a soggy, grotesque dumpster fire.
The story rather lazily kicks off with our trio tangled in a web of ritualistic organ-harvesting witches, their HQ decked out like a damp mausoleum crawling with worms and doom-sound FX. The space corporation? Barely there. They drop in to harass our heroes and then vanish like half-remembered app pop-ups. Instead, the narrative leans into shock for shock’s sake: the Doctor’s head is literally ripped off and eaten, Erimem is sexually assaulted, and there’s endless wet “squelch-sfx” as organs are displayed like antiques. It’s deeply mean-spirited and hollow—no tension, no horror, just gory noise.
It’s just tasteless. This isn’t bold horror storytelling, it’s Edgelord Theatre with a TARDIS budget. The final act involves everyone being reduced to magical batteries, the Doctor doing an exposition monologue while still technically dead, and Erimem’s pet cat deciding to sacrifice itself to save the universe. And by that point, I was seriously considering joining it.
I get that Nekromanteia was aiming for horror-sci-fi vibes, but it lands somewhere between tacky and nauseating. The world-building is thin as congealed plasma, the villains are cardboard exercise in bodyhorror without motive, and the corporation subplot isn’t a subplot—it’s a footnote. It’s grim, but not clever, and the shock tactics feel desperate, not enriching.
Where’s the Fifth Doctor’s playful intellect? Nowhere. Where’s Peri’s sharp empathy? MIA. Where’s Erimem’s royal grit? Buried under slime pits. None of them get to be more than reaction puppets to the next gory set piece. Even Nicholas Briggs’s voicework, usually a highlight, feels like he’s reading horror instructions off a fridge magnet.
There are moments—like the lodestone’s slow collapse, the death-strobe ambiance, and the “sacrificial cat” resolution—that flicker with potential. But they’re swallowed by an ocean of gratuitous violence and nihilistic surrealism. The plot twists are obvious, the desperation palpable. Instead of weighty commentary on death or corporate greed, we get tentacle-sounds and texture.
If you’re chasing grimdark indulgence, Nekromanteia probably does the job. For anyone else, it’s like being stuck in a haunted house of offal you can’t escape. It’s not horror with heart. It’s horror as a sledgehammer. And once you’re hit, you realize you’ve been duped.
Final Verdict:
A wet, grotesque misfire—misery masquerading as menace, with horror show visuals and nothing to say. About as enjoyable as dumpster-diving in a graveyard.
1 out of 5 necrotic lodestones.