Hellgate, 1989.
Directed by William A. Levey.
Starring Ron Palillo, Abigail Wolcott, Carel Trichardt, Petrea Curran and Evan J. Klisser.
SYNOPSIS:
A beautiful young woman murdered in the 1950s by a motorcycle gang returns from the dead after her father finds a magic crystal to revive her.
In the 1950s a ruthless biker gang kidnap and kill Josie (Abigail Wolcott), a beautiful young woman who was innocently collecting a pie from a diner. Many years later, Josie’s father Lucas (Carel Trichardt – The Fourth Reich) comes into the possession of a magic crystal that can bring the dead back to life so he goes to Josie’s grave and resurrects his daughter for her to lure people to Hellgate, the ghost town where he lives, so he can kill them.
With it so far? After he resurrects Josie a group of students who know about the legend of Hellgate come to stay nearby and all sorts of hilarity ensues as zombies wander around, people get stabbed with knives and by getting axes thrown at their heads, and small animals get blasted with a strange blue laser and then blow up – welcome to Hellgate, one of the strangest horror films to have come out of the 1980s, and that’s saying something.
So, we’ve established that the plot is pretty nonsensical but surely the actors can carry the film with some knowing performances and a few winks to the camera? Well, lead actor Ron Palillo (Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives) certainly livens things up with his energetic and likeable performance as Matt, the unwitting victim of Josie’s deadly desires as he makes his way to the cabin to meet with his girlfriend Pam (Petrea Curran). It is Palillo who carries the whole movie as the rest of the supporting cast are really quite bad, but with so many bad performances you do begin to wonder if it is Palillo who is out of place and not the wooden retorts he has to reply to. Abigail Wolcott is the obvious focal point and she does cut a striking pose or two, mainly in the scene where she is being harassed by the bikers and gets her skirt ripped off. It takes a special kind of woman to strike some model poses whilst she is wearing just a pair of knickers and fending off bullies trying to rape her and Wolcott does it with style. However, that same sense of putting on a show doesn’t emerge when she opens her mouth and she comes off as bland as the rest of the cast, who obviously think they’re in something heavyweight in akin to Evil Dead II or Re-Animator but are clearly misjuding their delivery. The direction is also off, with director William A. Levey seemingly having the intention of making an exploitation horror film but suddenly changing his mind when the camera is about to reveal something that you watch exploitation films for and feeling like it’s holding back. There’s definitely a very stilted feel to some of the more gratuitous scenes that could have used a little more – for use of a better word – raunch in them.
But – and here’s the sell – Hellgate does have a feel about it that puts it in the same camp (in both senses of the word) as many late ’80s/early ’90s horror films with a bit of a manic edge, such as Frankenhooker, The Vineyard and Lifeforce. Not that Hellgate is anywhere near as competent as any of those films but it comes from the same place and there is definitely a heavy Tobe Hooper vibe to much of it which, if you’re of a mind to appreciate the films of the era and all of their faults, is enough to appeal on a certain level and make the film oddly engaging.
The special effects aren’t amazing by any stretch of the imagination but they suit the type of film that Hellgate is – there is even an exploding mutant goldfish that looks naff but it feels so very right in the context of the film – and the violence isn’t extreme but there is plenty of running around with sharp weapons being thrown about to keep things moving along. In all, there is always something happening on the screen and it is usually quite pleasing to watch, even if it makes no sense whatsoever.
Containing some juicy extras focusing on the direct-to-video boom of the 1980s and interviews with some key figures involved with the film, this is a nice package for fans of that era of horror movies willing to overlook wooden acting, clunky direction and confused plots that amount to very little but for anybody not clued in and just looking for the simple pleasure of watching a scary horror film then Hellgate will baffle more than please. An odd little curio indeed but one that offers up some weirdly fun delights for the ’80s connoisseur.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
Originally published December 19, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
