Welcome to my 49 days of horror. When Tromeric told me he was firing up the 49
days again I was very excited. The last
49 days of horror was where my love of shitty, random horror movies comes
from. I was introduced to so many movies
I'd never even heard of and some of them became fast favorites that I still
love today, Chopping Mall and Ghoulies 3 I'm looking at you, so it holds an
important place in my life. I'm hoping
to keep that spirit of discovery alive and well this time around. On to the reviews.
Hellgate
1990
Dir: William A. Levey
My main theme with a lot of these reviews is going to be
first time viewings for me, mostly on VHS.
One of the main reasons I got back into collecting VHS again was to find
those forgotten gems, or turds, that I haven't seen yet and experience them for
the first time on VHS. I've been pretty
burned out on the state of modern horror, so it's time to go back to the "classics"
as it was.
First up is Hellgate, for the special effects wizard behind
the first two Hellraiser movies. At
least that's what the box art tells me repeatedly when ever it has the
chance. It's the classic story of a starry eyed young girl kidnapped by the
most random assortment of bikers I've ever seen. A side note on the kidnapping, she's taken
from a small town diner with people inside and outside and there is literally
zero effort from anyone around to stop it.
It's clear the bikers intend to have their way with her, what with
ripping off her dress in the middle of said diner, and yet no one even mumbles "stop"
under their breath or anything, it's ridiculous. OK, back on track, through a series of things happening that
include hatchet throwing and some kind of razor chains or something our lovely
lady is killed. She's then brought back to life by her mourning father, who
keeps softcore porn glamour shots of his dead daughter in his study, with the help of a magic crystal that shoots
laser beams, which seems to have turned her dress into wet tissue paper so you can see her nipples in every scene for the rest of the movie.
They set up this as being a ghost story about the hitchiking
lady in white that lures her victims to an untimely demise. When in reality she just kind flashes her
tits around and gives Horschack from Welcome Back Kotter some serious blue
balls. The real action in the movie comes from the aforementioned crystal. The dad goes around shooting shit with it and
creating mutant exploding goldfish and other random stuff, including some
horrible looking zombies. Then some shit
happens and people do some things, it's really not important, believe me.
One final thing before I sum this up. If you're going to plaster the fact that the
guy directing your movie is some special effects guru then maybe make sure your
movie isn't full of laughably bad effects.
This movie sports one of the worst fake bats this side of Suspiria and
my god the zombies look like shit. Now,
don't get me wrong I love shitty effects and that bat made me giggle like a
school girl, but just don't draw attention to yourself is all I'm saying.
-Jacob VonKlingele
1 comment:
Good god the music playing through the diner scene (and most of the film) is SO LOUD in the mix and so damn awful. Makes it even harder to watch than the bad acting / writing / directing / effects / everything...
Solid review, spot on.
http://www.zombiehall.com/2013/03/hellgate.html
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