The Empire of Corpses (2015)

TOPICS:

Posted By: brian@brianschell.com February 17, 2022

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

This animated movie really crams a lot into the two hours. It’s a steampunk alternate reality where Frankenstein’s science was not only real but comes into widespread use to animate the dead on a mass scale. Add to that adventure, politics, and loads of action and this movie is quite a ride.

Synopsis

1878 London, John Watson, our narrator, says that he needs more corpses. He has discovered the corpses weigh 21 grams less than they do while alive. This is the weight of the soul’s essence. By injecting an artificial soul essence, he can resurrect the dead. The first time this was done was by Dr. Frankenstein. Frankenstein’s monster had a soul and was unique, but the newer resurrected are only pale imitations of life, with artificial souls. Frankenstein’s monster is now called The One, but he has vanished. Our narrator wants to replace the original souls into new bodies to really bring back the dead. His version of the undead are pretty mindless, able to follow instructions but that’s about all.

Corpse technologies are critical to everything. Animated corpses make perfect soldiers; if they die, no one cares. Artificial souls can be created on punch cards, called “Necroware.” The undead make good servants, housekeepers, wait staff, and lots of other things. Undead workers are everywhere, and Necroware engineers are making improvements every day. Credits roll.

The government tracks Watson down and makes him an offer he can’t refuse; come work for the Queen. He and his personal zombie, Friday, go to Bombay. Former President Grant is there, showing off Civil War technologies, but suddenly there is an attack. There are Russian controlled exploding corpses going off everywhere. Watson and Burnaby eventually evade the attackers.

Karamazov has taken his undead and captured Afghanistan. “M” instructs Watson to go there and stop Karamazov and retrieve Dr. Frankenstein’s notes. Nicolae will be accompanying them. Nicolae’s job is to bring back Karamazov, but he says he doesn’t care about the Frankenstein Memorandum. They watch a battle between undead armies; it’s really just a numbers game. Karamazov’s zombies are smarter and better, with murderous intent, than those of the British. Suddenly, a woman with a flamethrower cannon wipes out most of the army. That night, they reanimate one of the captured enemies. The girl Hadaly introduces herself, she’s President Grant’s secretary.

Eventually, they arrive in Afghanistan. They all expect that with Karamazov’s new kind of souls, the reappearance of The One can’t be too far off. They meet Karamazov. Karamazov uses the new corpse tech on Nikolai, and Watson watches. Karamazovhas installed an artificial soul into a living being, which isn’t allowed. When Nikolai kills Karamazov, he tells Watson where to find the Memorandum– and to destroy it.

In Japan, they learn about the Osata Chemical company, which is also developing new corpse types. The group knowingly walks into a trap; they aren’t the only ones after the Memorandum. The Memorandum is protected by giant reanimated samurai soldiers. Friday downloads the text of the Memorandum as the others battle corpses. Friday has convulsions, but Burnaby insists on destroying the book. Before anyone does anything, the room explodes.

The One, Frankenstein’s Monster, arrives and talks to Watson. He’s a hundred years old now. He takes the Memorandum and leaves. He wakes up aboard the USS Richmond, heading for the United States, Hadaly is caring for him since he’s got cholera. Friday is still with them, but he’s not the same.

President Grant wants Burnaby and Watson to stop The One, who is disrupting the dead all over the world. Meanwhile, The One uses the Paul Bunyan, a giant “analytical engine” to hack the necroware and transmit to all the world’s dead. He is also searching for something. All the undead, including Friday, turn on the living. Hadaly can control them somewhat, and she helps them to escape, but it’s revealed that she’s a robot. In the middle of all this, Friday signals that he’s at least somewhat conscious now.

M finally tracks down The One, and they talk. M wants to use the Memorandum to create a new world, and they take The One into custody in the Tower of London, where the Charles Babbage analytical engine is housed.

Hadaly shows Watson to the Nautilus, a giant submarine controlled by her father, Thomas Edison.

M takes The One to the tower and the huge supercomputer, which is all connected to Victor Frankenstein’s living brain. The Charles Babbage engine comes to life and beams out a signal to all the undead, everywhere. Once all the humans are undead, there will be no more unhappiness or suffering, ever. The good guys hook Friday into the computer, and shoots M.

The One breaks loose and kills M for good. He takes Friday and Hadaly and puts them in his machines. He sucks all the artificial souls out of all the undead. He rebuilds the soul of his lost bride and places it inside Hadaly. He then places his own soul inside Friday.

Burnaby shoots the machine, which causes things to go haywire. They seal The One’s consciousness into the machine.

Later, Watson keeps working with Friday to get his soul back. The ending is ambiguous.

Commentary

There’s so much going on here, the world is very deep and well-considered. If this was a book series, I’d read it. Apart from the omnipresent corpse technology, there’s a lot of steampunk technology in use throughout the film, some of which is explained and some isn’t.

If The One was Frankenstein’s Monster form a hundred years ago, who was that big guy Burnaby was fighting in the end? He looked like the Karloff-version of the monster, but there was never any explanation that I caught.

Again, there are a huge number of ideas, concepts, and philosophies thrown in here that it all feels really rushed. If this had been five hours long, I doubt they could have done justice to all of it.

It’s really good. Dense, but good. It’s probably worth watching more than once to pick up all the details.