“Dark Forces (Fuego Negro)” is a bloody-minded, sex-scene-stuffed Mexican film noir that that staggers along like a George A. Romero zombie.

That’s rich, because “zombies” aren’t the creatures of mythic horror this Bernardo Arellano thriller has in mind.

Atmospheric, with gloomy scenes bathed in lurid shades of neon, if it went any slower it would unfold in reverse.

A loner (Tenoch Huerta) shows up at a classic noir hotel. He’s not just checking in, he tells the sketchy desk clerk (Marina Huerta). He’s looking for somebody.

Yeah, the clerk might have a lead. But as “Franco,” hunts for Sonia, whom flashbacks suggest is his sister, he has time to rescue/bed the waitress/sex-worker Rubi, given a femme fatale clingy edge by Eréndira Ibarra. She’s the fall-in-love-in-an-instant type.

“In crime,” he assures her (in Spanish with English subtitles), “whoever has your back today stabs it tomorrow.”

He’ll meet the creepy-as-all-get-out cadaverous gay trumpet player/drug dealer (Nick Zedd), first in his nightmares.

And he’ll consult a the albino medium (Johana Fragoso Blendl), a sensitive soul who “sings” her prophecies, but who can only be consulted during a full moon.

For an 80 minute movie, this picture dawdles a lot. Long pauses, slow turns, wasting screen time on Franco doing his exercise regimen in his hotel room, wasting more time on his fetishized unwrapping (it’s in a hanky) folding knife, which looks like nothing special.

But Franco needs it for his “work.” And his work is “hunting,” and not just for his sister.

Some of the effects, a soul-sucking tapeworm that comes out of the possessed’s mouth and into a victim, aren’t bad. The dialogue has its moments.

“Evil has drunk from your blood!”

But the pacing just amplifies how routine-and-worse this is, sex and occasional burst of violence aside. The actors aren’t interesting, the archetypes they play are tedious, the tropes and props — Franco wears a trench coat, of course — laughably predictable.

“Dark Forces” is the sort of thriller you “research” by watching telenovela thrillers on the TV, day drinking at home.

Rating: TV-MA, graphic violence, sex

Cast: Tenoch Huerta, Eréndira Ibarra, Mauricio Aspe, Daina Liparoti, Johana Fragoso Blendl and Nick Zedd.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Bernardo Arellano. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:21