Hellblazers

It kinda starts off with a SyFy movie formula but then takes a lot of fun, unpredictable directions. It's good to see Tony Todd and Adrienne Barbeau if fun movies again. Bruce Dern would have ruled in You're Next.

This was one of those movies I was sort of half watching while doing something else, but after the first 10-15 minutes I was hooked. Nothing makes sense in this movie. Nothing is ever explained, the extraordinarily bad decisions made by some characters are frustrating. But the thing that really lift s this above is the fact the characters a likeable and very well acted. There are some great characters acted by some recognisable actors. It is a good fun movie, but suffers from falling between the lines of comedy and horror. You never find out the backstory, and the first 10 minutes seem like a life time ago, but it was fun, and sometimes horror movies need that..

Sloppy, sloppy work.

Sad to see some great icons dragged so low.

Continuity was appalling, editing, set design, camera work, it was all sloppy. Don't get me started on the terrible practical effects. I understand working on a budget, but I swear they just draped chicken skin on the demon at one point.

It's such a shame to be honest. It had a lot of potential to be a great low budget film. Perhaps, instead of hiring some kitch legends, they could have spent the money on production. Tony Todd, Meg Foster et al can not substitute for decent FX. In fact it was a little sad to see them all in this.

Well, initially then I have to say that I was rather impressed with the cast ensemble that was on the cast list for the 2022 horror movie "Hellblazers" from writer and director Justin Lee.

And yeah, I hadn't heard about the movie prior to stumbling upon it here late in 2022. But with it being a horror movie, of course I opted to sit down and watch the movie.

"Hellblazers" was watchable, sure, but it was by no means a grand milestone in horror cinema. In fact, I will actually go as far as to deem "Hellblazers" to be a rather mundane and bland foray into the horror genre. Luckily a rather impressive cast ensemble were able to keep the movie afloat.

The concept idea for "Hellblazers" was interesting enough, there were some potential here, for sure. But writer and director Justin Lee seemed to drop the ball and opted to go for a rather bland and generic approach to bring the movie to life on the screen.

If you are a newcomer to the horror genre, then you might get a kick out of "Hellblazers". But if you are, like myself, a seasoned horror veteran, then "Hellblazers" came and went without much of any lasting impression. This is hardly a movie that I will recommend to horror fans, except if it is only to see the rather nice cast ensemble.

The acting performances in "Hellblazers" were fair enough, but it was clear that the actors and actresses were struggling with a bland script and character gallery. There are some familiar faces and names on the cast list, especially if you have been watching horror movie since the 1980s; with the likes of Ed Morrone, Adrienne Barbeau, Meg Foster, Courtney Gains, John Kassir, Edward Finlay, Bruce Dern and Billy Zane.

My rating of "Hellblazers" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.

Within the first 20 minutes there is an event, then a witness of said event describes the event we just saw to the sheriff. Then the sheriff says "Let me get this straight..." and relays the event back to the witness who just described it! Who is writing this stuff?

The premise seemed interesting and with a better script and more gore (this may have been due to budget constraints) it could have been entertaining. As-is it feels like the talent they brought together for this effort was wasted.

I also think this would have worked better as a straight-up horror film. The "comedy" was not funny. Honestly, I would skip this one.