Devil's Den - Killing from Dusk till Dawn

(2006) Devil's Den HORROR/ COMEDY

Conventional lower budget version of "From Dusk Til Dawn" clone which the two are almost identical! With Quinn (Devon Sawa), Caitlin (Kelly Hu) and Leonard (Ken Foree) go to strip club called "Devil's Den" down in Mexico, only to confront a bunch of ghouls. The film starts off as a gore fest to a simple minded comedy toward the end, especially the final dual between Hu and the queen of ghouls who for some reason doesn't even call out her ghoul cohorts. Inconsistently convenient and conventional which the director of this film and the producer may have collided!

OK so in actuality, this is a total B movie (by which i mean it pretty much sucks). But you know what totallyi redeems it? It STARS Kelly Hu. I mean, she is not just an bit part. She is the star role. OK, you had me with Kelly Hu (in her prime). It is what it is!

You know what else kinda redeems the movie. Its about GHOULS. Different! not vampires, not demons, not werewolves. Ghouls! Bonus points for that and Hu, brings this movie from a 5 to a 7.

I had a nice time sitting through this edgy horror comedy, and have no regrets. It was certainly targeting the younger viewer however I found it a decent expenditure of my time due to the better than average talent they acquired.Eventually I sort of fell into the rather macabre storyline. Obviously the budget was low and the sets didn't change much,in fact everything happens at one location,"the strip club from hell" but for my two cents I have to say they pulled of a nice entertaining little package, probably due to a lot of things like good camera work, a descent director and some pretty good young and not too well know actors like Kelly Hu, who happens to be one of our local girls here in Hawaii. Kelly gave a nice performance, although it's probably hard to step down from a role as Cassandra in the scorpion King to something with less of a bang, she and Devon Sawa, Ken Foree and Karen Maxwell gave it a great effort. I think this film will be a bit of a cult classic in the ghoul killing vampire wasting category. If you don't think a ghoul hunt with dry humor would be your cup of tea then perhaps you should pass on this one, but if your not offended by that sort of thing then give it a shot, I think you'll have a few laughs and the time will go right by. I'm sure we will see a lot more of the cast from this film, they seem to be practicing a craft called acting.

On their way home from smuggling a case of high-potency Spanish Fly, two young men get lost and end up at the Devil's Den, a gentleman's club with no cover charge and some fine-looking ladies. But what starts off as a leisurely diversion quickly turns to panic when the pair discover some of the dancers are looking for a little more than a few dollars.

This film comes from director Jeff Burr ("Leatherface" and many others), am an with a solid history of directing horror films with a little less serious of an edge (such as the Puppetmaster films). I mean this in the kindest of ways, because finding the right blend of horror and comedy is an art form, and one that Burr has really found a knack for. This film entertains -- the balance of laughs and gore is flawless.

At first glance, I thought writer Mitch Gould might owe some serious kudos to Robert Kurtzman -- I'm not the first person to notice that the undead dancing in a club is not a new idea (see "From Dusk Till Dawn"). But don't underestimate Gould. Despite his background being more stunts and less writing (this is his sophomore effort), he really gave his heart to this script. A blend of characters and situations that would only otherwise work on an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" seems right at home in the Devil's Den.

The assembled cast is by no means foreign to the horror film (or the horror comedy film). Devon Sawa (Quinn the Spanish Fly smuggler) has come a long way from his days as the cute Casper and is now a noted horror celebrity ("Final Destination", "Idle Hands"). Sawa may have lost his boyish looks and charm, but his unique style and delivery have stayed pure. Ken Foree (Leonard, a vampire-hunting swordsman) needs no introduction. Appearing in both "Dawn of the Dead" films, Burr's "Leatherface" and countless other horror classics, this man's resume looks like a year's line-up of screenings at a college horror club. In short, Foree shines as usual. And although much younger than Foree, Kelly Hu's horror credentials also span back multiple decades ("Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan"). She plays the character of Caitlin perfectly, with enough panache and luxuriousness to rival any "final girl" in modern horror. Just don't ask how come she never runs out of bullets (it's a movie!).

A twist I really liked is the idea that the way to kill ghouls is not by removing the head or the heart or using some special equipment (silver bullets, crosses, etc.) but simply starvation. I don't recall ever hearing this from another film and it's an interesting twist. Leonard's explanation that decapitation is a great way to disconnect the mouth from the stomach (and thus speed up starvation) was ingenious.

While the film is full of great one-liners, gorgeous women and some serious gore (a scene where a man's heart is removed through his back was glorious), the key moment that told me this film was a winner involved the blind samurai (played by Ken Ohara). The feel of the movie changed, but in such a way you knew the creators were capable of anything -- no reason to worry about any loose ends or amateur sloppiness.

While I had not heard of this film prior to this viewing, I can see it becoming popular among horror fans and somewhat of a sleeper hit. While not of the same caliber as the classics, there lies in this film a certain charm that makes it both easy and enjoyable to watch again and again.

OK, OK...so it's rip-off of several other horror-comedies. It's still fairly amusing and at least slightly unpredictable. Shoddy FX don't ruin ALL your enjoyment. Plus, you get to see Devon Sawa looking like he's been hanging around outside hotels cadging cigarette butts.

But now to the important stuff. Is everyone in horror movies completely deaf? I mean, you can have four people just yammering away in an argument just down the hall from a dozen ghouls, and the ghouls apparently don't hear a thing. At one point, a couple is just plain yelling at each other at the entrance to a cave (plus, one of them is firing a gun periodically) and the creatures inside the cave are absolutely oblivious. I've never been in a cave where that would have worked. And it's not just this movie, either. Evil slashers are always dropping out of the ceiling behind a victim, pulling up alongside cars in their own cars, and opening doors and hatches right next to potential victims. Does anyone notice anything? Nope. I mean, I'm 54 years old and I know I would have figured it out.

But enough digression. This is an OK movie. Check it out, if you like the genre.