Hellmaster

This movie's reviews would have you think it was absolute trash. It's not. It's not good, don't get me wrong, it's just not that bad either. The 90s were a wasteland for horror. The genre bottomed out in the 80's due to a mixture of bad press and lowest common denominator filmmaking, and this certainly falls into that category. It's a movie made by kids in their early 20s about a psychotic professor (the always great John Saxon of Enter the Dragon, Tenebrae, A Nightmare on Elm Street 1, 3, and 7, and From Dusk Till Dawn) who has accidentally mastered the ability to control people's minds. So, he does the next logical thing, builds a weirdo family of mutilated Hellraiser knockoffs and returns to the college campus that turned on him to exact revenge. Again, not a great movie. But not a terrible one either. There's enough weird visuals, John Saxon evil (never one to phone it in, he does enough self-important evil maniac to satisfy his fans) and general weirdness to keep die hard horror fans interested. But the thing is the 90's were something of a dead zone for horror. There were a few great movies (In the Mouth of Madness, Scream) but, generally, they were weird, disjointed garbage. And this movie is certainly is that. Relative to lousy straight-to-video movies, it's above average, but still not good. I've seen both the director's cut and the theatrical version and, honestly, there's not much difference. A few character beats and that's it. I didn't hate it and there's much worse but the movie only works as a time capsule or as an interesting example for fans of B-list icon John Saxon of what happens when he plays a power drunk psycho. A few decent visuals, mid-level gore, and one tacked on nude scene. Watch if you dare...

You could say "Hellmaster" is one of those forgotten, daft on-the-cheap b-horror films, which gains ones interest with cult actors like David "Flyboy" Emge from the original "Dawn of the Dead" and the always suave John Saxon. The premise sounds like it can be fun, but you don't expect a good film. You just hoped to be entertained. It does that… well not at all times. What starts off rather interesting and ghastly (as I was thinking it's like something out of Clive Barker's mind), despite its randomly crude handling soon it becomes a boring muddle of aimless occurrences, a real lack of exposition shows from its clumsy script and fragmented editing only confuses even more. Then tack on its preachy religious subtext. The drearily hellish activity takes place on a campus with a terrible history, as Saxon plays the demented professor Jones who tests out a drug on the homeless which genetically disfigures them turning each homicidal as they follow him back to his university in their bus of doom. They serve him, as his known as Papa (???) to them. Waiting for him is a reporter (Emge), who did the story on him that unmasked the horrific experiments he was doing on the students on the campus in the past. Now Dr. Jones is back, he plans to experiment again on a new lot of students while his army simply loiter around injecting themselves or having some fun with a use of sickle but Jones might have met his match as one of the co-eds has psychic abilities. It's completely nonsensical and choppy (Jones has projectile powers?), but where it stands out is its competent use of make-up effects and there's some creativity within some sequences. I liked the campus setting, where the director tried to install Gothic atmospherics with his use of neon lighting or at times a lack of it amongst dark, shadowy corridors. Does it work? Not all the time, but some attempts have effective visuals. Jolts are cheaply done. Performances are mainly lousy and forgettable. Saxon seems to be sleepwalking through it, Emge looks all lost and Amy Raasch is capable enough as the heroine. While it seems to cop a real shellacking, this quickly made production has few, if clunky thrills.

"They're coming."

When you're an avid fan of a certain B-movie star, you inevitably also have to struggle yourself through tons of irredeemably bad low-budget movies simply because your idol made the unwise career choice of starring in them. For instance, being a fan of Jeffrey Combs caused me to suffer movies like "Cellar Dweller" and "Lurking Fear", and I felt the need to endure "Dracula 3000" and something called "Revenant" only because I like Udo Kier. Now, I'm an even bigger admirer of John Saxon than I am of Jeffrey Combs and Udo Kier combined, and thus even pure crap like "Hellmaster" becomes fundamental viewing! Big, big, BIG mistake, as this is a hopelessly retarded horror movie and even Saxon's sinister performance can't save it. The script of this thing is completely senseless and dumb, yet somehow it has the pretension of being an ambitious and even intellectual tale of terror. Saxon occasionally appears as a demented professor who tested a newly invented mental drug on a bunch of homeless people back in 1969. Things went a little wrong and the guinea pigs turned into deformed monsters. Now, more than 20 years later, he's back in the catacombs of a university for gifted people (yet, all the students are rather stupid) and he hopes to pick up his experiments. Our nutty professor is hindered by an obtrusive journalist (David Emge) who lost his wife to the drug as well as by some redundant students. The structure implemented by director Douglas Schulze is terribly annoying. Pointless flashbacks are followed by present days events and then stupidly blend with hallucination scenes and sub plots. It feels like Schulze wants his viewers to connect the pieces of the puzzle themselves, but you just don't care about it enough to do that. Quite a few gory murders are committed by the freak-monster shown on the DVD-cover (some kind of crossover between Hellraiser's Pinhead and Pumpkinhead), but I never really figured out whether he was one of the homeless guys or one of the fresh student species. John Saxon acts on automatic pilot, as if he very well realizes it's an inferior production, and the rest of the cast is downright abominable. This piece of junk somehow managed to gather a small fan base, but my advise it so skip it, even if you consider John Saxon to be a demigod.

At last, this films gets a rework that it so richly deserved. Way cooler than the '92 cut. Douglas Schulze has proven that you can make really cool horror films on a shoestring budget, without sacrificing production value. Mike Goi's cinematography and color palete are reminicient of Dario's masterpiece "Susperia". Saxon is dead on as the insane college professor (we've all had a share of these types in our lives!) and David Emgee adds a "Kolchek-the Night Stalker" coolness to his role as the investigative reporter. But who can forget Ron Asheton of "Iggy Pop and the Stooges" dressed as a psychotic nun! If you dig creepy, stylish horror films, this one is for you!

1969- "The Nietzche Experiment;" a US government scientific experiment has created a superman drug to induce telepathic abilities. The problem is it's headed over by a mad doctor (John Saxon) who's not above trying to cover up the grotesque mutations that ensue.

"20 Years Later," Saxon is still at work with the chemical, and four surviving mutants (his "children") attack and kill coeds at The Kant Institute of Technology. A reporter and others set out to stop the madness.

The main problems here are that most of the violence is offscreen (the best FX are saved for the ghouls), the film is overpopulated by boring college kid characters (most of whom can't act) and the script stinks (and is often downright senseless). The direction is flat and uninteresting aside from some minor Dario Argento-inspired sets and basic lighting tricks, which somehow fail to impress in this context. Still it's entertaining to see David (DAWN OF THE DEAD) Emge in a rare appearance and Saxon does what he can with his limited screen time. Aside from those two, the film is entirely forgettable.

Score: 3 out of 10