Just for the Hell of It

A young teenage boy is blamed for a Florida neighborhood being terrorized. But the real culprits are a gang of four punks leading a group of local delinquents on a nihilistic lifestyle of destruction and mayhem.

What strikes me about the film is the parallel with "Clockwork Orange". This is obviously not intentional, but the gang accosting an old (apparently blind) man seems very much like the droogs attacking homeless men. Lewis approaches it in a far more gruesome manner, however, with some of the violence very much Ripper-esque. Alex (in "Clockwork") is somehow sympathetic, despite being a murderous rapist. But Dexter (played by Ray Sager) is just a pure sociopath.

Worthy of note is the appearance of musician Larry Williams. Williams is best known for writing and recording some rock and roll classics from 1957 to 1959 for Specialty Records, including "Bony Moronie", "Short Fat Fannie", "High School Dance" (1957), "Slow Down", "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" (1958), "Bad Boy" and "She Said Yeah" (1959). John Lennon was a fan, and the Beatles and several other British Invasion groups covered several of his songs.

A group of crazy, violent teens makes life a living hell for a town of babies, handicapped people, blind men, and single women with nary a cop in sight when anything happens, shortly after anything happens, or even after that. Herschell Gordon Lewis tries his hand at making a teen gang violence picture with some kind of social commentary. But the result is a film with a very sadistic side and loads of intentional(I think they were at least) and many unintentional laughs. Acting, a far off feeling in most Lewis films, is fairly decent here. The youthful leads convey menace enough to hope something terrible happens to them. The group plays all kinds of pranks...some harmless at first but then work their way up to murder and rape. The Lewis touch is clearly evident in the relentless, unfeeling tone of the film. It has no heart at all. Because it has some laughs and shows some situations of intended violence hitherto unseen in any of Lewis's works, I would take a moment and see the film....just for the hell of it!

Shot back-to-back with SHE-DEVILS ON WHEELS, JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT is almost as good. Filled with amazing scenes of mass destruction and devilish deeds, HELL may be the ultimate j.d. film. Too bad it came a few (10) years too late!

Destruction Inc. is a leather-jacket, bike-riding teenage gang who, for the duration of the film, cause trouble for law-abiding citizens and the law. That's it. There really is no plot here, just scene after scene of crimes committed by boys AND girls.

HELL is obviously the sister of SHE-DEVILS. The cast, almost all having appeared in SHE-DEVILS, includes Rodney Bedell, Nancy Lee Noble, Ruby Tuesday, Pat Poston, a number of the men from the stud line, two of the biker chicks, and the heroine's mother! Ray Sager, who plays one of the gang leaders, later played Montag in WIZARD OF GORE! Nancy Lee Noble really deserved more roles in these types of movies. She's great in SHE-DEVILS and is good here, too. I have yet to see her in THE GIRL, THE BODY & THE PILL, but she has already become one of my psychotronic favorites. On another note: the music is all from THE GRUESOME TWOSOME, with the exception of the two songs performed by the Florida garage band. I wish a CD would come out of music that Larry Wellington supervised for H.G. Lewis' films. He really aided the 60s feel of movies like this one, GRUESOME TWOSOME and SHE-DEVILS ON WHEELS.

JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT is, like I said, scene after scene after scene of mass destruction. This gets a little repetitive, but never gets dull. The main gang leader (I'm hazy on the name of the actor) seems more apt to play the good-looking hero and I would love to have seen him try that role. Not H.G. Lewis' best, but JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT is full of scenes that only Lewis would film and that 60s Florida feel that makes it indescribably fun to endure.

For entertainment, Charlie Manson LOVED the goriest of magazines and movies or at least something hatefully abusive to women and/or children. He must of thought Herschell's 'hack-em up' films were an great option at the drive-in in the 60's, when they were released. It's coincidental that between Herschell Gordon Lewis filming on Charlie Manson's Spaun ranch in the late 60's and 'Charlie and the gang' getting revenge on the the recording industry (one school of thought), Just For the Hell of It was released. The actual events in the hills of Los Angeles and fictional events in this movie appear way too similar to be a coincidence (instead of 'pig' written on the wall in red, it was 'FUZZ'). Another troubling connection is that besides acting like Manson the cripple kicking, baby throwing White (Denny Fortune) got his albums title song internationally released with THE most controversial 1969 Charlie Manson tune (sung by the Beach boys???) on EMI's Ah Feel Like Ahcid.

All this should scare the public more than the connections of Just For the Hell of It, Burgess, Kubrick and the making of Clockwork Orange should interest them.

Not being a fan of exploitation films, but for years after violent, extreme, provocative films in general, I stumbled upon this little flick from the 1968. I hadn't yet seen any other film from Herschell Gordon Lewis {shame!), so I thought I should give it try.

It's quite strange this is not more popular, because, if this is what Herschell Gordon Lewis films feel like, then I would like to see more. It is probably one of the earliest samples of mindless politically incorrect cinema done pretty sloppy but effectively, a classic exploitation, if you ask me, and even if you regularly don't take it too seriously, it's quite daring for 1968. Some scenes might raise a smile to some, intentionally or not.

So, this quite unknown film is recommended for those after a nice old party film for a night with friends, pizza and beers {the music just feels great with this one), exploitation fans {this is a must) and in general, those who are looking for mindless fun, not shocked by somewhat explicit material.