The Story of Necrologies
Necrologies opens with a simple transgression: Ludovic, a photographer hunting for atmospheric shots, sneaks into a cemetery to capture images for his website. He's caught red-handed by the old grave keeper—the kind of figure who's spent decades watching people mourn, bury, and move on. Rather than call the police immediately, the keeper decides to wait with Ludovic, and during that tense interim, he pulls out a weathered book. Inside aren't dry administrative records or epitaphs. They're stories. Bizarre, intriguing, sometimes grotesque tales of the people buried beneath the stones. What unfolds is a frame narrative that uses death as its throughline, but treats mortality less as tragedy and more as a canvas for the strange, the darkly comic, and the genuinely unsettling.
The film's structure—a keeper revealing tomb stories to a captive audience—echoes the spirit of obituaries, though not the kind you'd find in a newspaper. Where traditional obituaries aim for "balanced accounts" written in measured tones, Necrologies leans into the bizarre edges of human existence, the stories newspapers might skip over. It's a 75-minute descent into a book of the dead, reimagined as pulp fiction.
Behind the Making of Necrologies
Necrologies is a genuinely collaborative effort, directed by five filmmakers: Fabien Chombart, Guillaume Defare, Nathalie Epoque, François Message, and Alexis Wawerka. That's not a typo—this is an anthology where each director brought their own sensibility to different segments of the keeper's book. The French production released in 2018, and it assembled a cast that blends seasoned character actors with genre veterans. Jean-Claude Dreyfus, a familiar face in French cinema, anchors the frame narrative as the grave keeper, lending gravitas and a kind of weary wisdom to the role. Alexis Wawerka appears both as a director and as an actor, creating an interesting layer of creative involvement. Linnea Quigley—a cult horror icon with a filmography stretching back decades—brings her particular brand of genre credibility to the ensemble.
The film's modular approach, with five different directors, is both its strength and its challenge. Anthology films live or die by tonal consistency and pacing, and when you're splitting directorial duties, you're gambling that the seams won't show. At 75 minutes, Necrologies doesn't overstay its welcome, which helps. The production values reflect a modest budget typical of European horror collaborations, but there's a deliberateness to the visual language that suggests everyone involved knew exactly what kind of film they were making. IMDb users have rated it 4.4 out of 10, which suggests—fairly or not—that the tonal shifts and anthology structure didn't land uniformly with audiences.
What Makes Necrologies Stand Out
Here's what's striking about Necrologies: it doesn't apologize for being weird. The film operates in a register where horror and dark comedy aren't separate genres but adjacent rooms in the same house. The grave keeper's stories aren't meant to terrify in a conventional sense—they're meant to unsettle, to provoke a laugh that catches in your throat, to remind you that death is both universal and utterly particular to each person. Each story in the keeper's book treats its subject matter with a kind of deadpan sincerity that could've easily tipped into parody but somehow doesn't.
Dreyfus's performance is crucial here. He doesn't play the keeper as a clichéd harbinger of doom or a cryptic sage. Instead, he's matter-of-fact, almost bored by his own stories—which somehow makes them more effective. When he turns the pages of his book, there's no theatrical buildup. The stories just emerge, and you're left to sit with them. The ensemble cast across the segments doesn't oversell their material either, which is a choice that could've backfired but instead creates a kind of hypnotic rhythm.
What's harder to pin down is whether the film's mixed reception stems from tonal miscalculation or from audiences expecting something different. The anthology format means you're never quite settling into one emotional register, and that won't work for everyone. But for viewers who appreciate horror that's willing to be strange without needing to be explained, there's something here worth considering.
Where to Stream Necrologies Online
Necrologies is currently available on Prime Video, making it accessible through Amazon's sprawling catalog of genre films. If you're a Prime subscriber hunting for something off the beaten path—something that won't show up in the algorithm's "Top Picks for You" section—this is the kind of title that rewards active searching. Movie OTT tracks streaming availability across platforms in real time, so if you're wondering where to find this film or similar obscure horror-fantasy hybrids, that's your resource for checking current availability. The Where-to-Watch widget at the top of this page will show you exactly which platforms have it right now, so you don't have to bounce between apps trying to track it down.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Who directed Necrologies?
Necrologies was directed by five filmmakers collaborating on an anthology structure: Fabien Chombart, Guillaume Defare, Nathalie Epoque, François Message, and Alexis Wawerka. Each director handled different segments of the grave keeper's stories.
Q: Where can I watch Necrologies?
Necrologies is currently streaming on Prime Video. Check the Where-to-Watch widget on this page for the most up-to-date platform availability.
Q: How long is Necrologies?
The film runs 75 minutes, making it a compact anthology that doesn't linger on any single story too long.
Q: What's the plot of Necrologies?
A photographer caught trespassing in a cemetery is detained by the old grave keeper, who passes the time by revealing bizarre and intriguing stories from his book of tombs—a frame narrative that blends horror, fantasy, and dark comedy.
Q: Is Necrologies based on a true story?
No—Necrologies is a fictional anthology. While it draws thematic inspiration from the real-world tradition of obituaries and tomb inscriptions, the stories in the keeper's book are original creations meant to explore the strange, often untold aspects of human mortality.
Q: What's the IMDb rating for Necrologies?
Necrologies has an IMDb rating of 4.4 out of 10, reflecting mixed audience reception to its tonal shifts and anthology structure.
Final Thoughts on Necrologies
Necrologies isn't a film for everyone—and it seems to know that. It's deliberately strange, tonally restless, and uninterested in smoothing over the rough edges that come with collaborative filmmaking. But that's also partly why it's worth seeking out if you're the kind of viewer who appreciates horror that takes risks, that's willing to be funny and unsettling in the same breath. The grave keeper's book is a metaphor for cinema itself, really. Each story is a small window into a life, a death, a mystery. Some windows are clearer than others. Some let in more light. But you don't get to choose which stories you'll find most compelling—you just turn the pages and see what emerges. That's the Necrologies experience in a nutshell.
