VonKlingele's 49 Days: Hellgate

 

 

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.

   All in all this movie was pretty fun.  Not good mind you, but a fun watch.  There's lots o boobies, some good unintentional laughs, and you get to see more of Horshack's ass than you ever wanted.  The plot is shit, and doesn't make a lot of sense and the acting is pretty mediocre, but you need to at least see the mutated exploding goldfish.

 

-Jacob VonKlingele

 

Rating 2/5