Hellgate (1989)

"You're an asshole. I mean it. You really are." - Matt

A group of students uncover a deadly ghost story.
Starring: Ron Palillo, Petrea Curran, Evan J. Klisser, Joanne Warde, Abigail Wolcott

Link to IMDB

Bottom of the Barrel: Exhibit #8

We begin with a flashback that tells how the town of Hellgate became a ghost town with a dark past...
A young lady named Josie was killed by a motorcycle gang, and her father, Lucas, went mad with rage and killed the gang. Later, Lucas found a magical stone that gave him the power to raise the dead. Now Josie haunts the highways around Hellgate, luring travelers to their doom as revenge for those who killed her.

Enter four college students on a camping trip to the outskirts of Hellgate: Matt, Bobby, Pam, and Chuck.
They're not scared of Hellgate's urban legends, but that doesn't matter because Josie will soon find them anyways. At first she seduces Matt away from the group, and he barely escapes from her sexy powers and the wrath of Lucas.

Matt,  Pam,  Bobby,  Chuck

The group is now curious about this mysterious lady they've seen, so they head into Hellgate to try to debunk the myth of Josie and her dad Lucas... And the movie now becomes an episode of Scooby-Doo.

At first I thought I had a complete winner on my hands, and I couldn't understand why it has such a low IMDB rating. There's fun energy, laughs, wacky special effects, and good production value. But less than halfway through it all devolves into a tremendously boring slog.

Josie

The plot is just a mess, bouncing between nonsensical or just completely forgotten. It really does just feel like the Scooby-Doo cartoon, as the gang bumble around in the dark being chased by Josie or Lucas.
The fun I was initially having starts melting away into apathy.

"Take this, you zombie bitch!" [pulls out shotgun] - Pam

Lucas

All the cool practical effects are in the first 20 minutes, except for a brief zombie army that Lucas summons later on. And when I say brief, I mean it. The zombies are in the movie for 10 seconds!! What? Why? Huh?

There are a few really random scenes that could be from another movie entirely, and I suspect that a lot of this movie was ruined in the editing process. Meaning that large chunks of coherent things were probably left on the editing room floor.

There is some fun stuff here but it's few and far between, and I can't help but feel like this comedy-horror becomes one big example of wasted potential that fails on delivering both comedy and horror.




Be sure not to miss:
- The best fake bat ever.
- Two amazing things happen near the start of the movie. An exploding zombie goldfish, and an exploding zombie turtle. Awesome special effects, and hilarious to see in action.

Internet review:
"I watched this movie the same way I might watch a dead animal at the side of the road." - CSmarts

Should I watch it?
Nothing past the 20 minute mark is worth sitting through.

Where can I find it?
Here on YouTube.

Hellgate gets...