Hellmouth

This Constantine (2005) meets Sin City (2005) is a mostly black and white, graphic novel approach to hell. It's glaringly stark cinematography adapts well to the horror filled nightmares of children and the black despair and creepiness of hell. Strangely simplistic in its approach, the fifties element of the despondent detective in the form of a aging, dying, close to retirement grave-digger is caught up in a wrenched dilemma of perhaps having to continue dig his own grave on his terrible, nightmarish job until he dies (his dream of more sunny retirement Florida seemingly beyond his reach). This movie may have been much more effective had it been directed and scripted as an R-rated feature film so that its graphic profanity of a hellish nature and sexual emotional bonding could have enriched and enlivened the movie even more so. The somewhat soft ending can be taken either as a cop out or a refreshing little breath of mental sunshine, probably left up to the viewer. Nevertheless, this movie borders on the ranks of What Dreams May Come (1998) and to a lesser epic extent The Lord of the Rings (2001) in an epistemological (inner knowledge or truthful way).

I picked up this movie from my local library without knowing anything about it other than the brief plot synopsis on the back of the DVD case. While it's not one of the worst movies I have ever seen, it's definitely one of the strangest I have seen. And that explains the main problem I had with the movie - it is so determined to be strange and murky that it doesn't give the audience anything to hang on to. The characters are vague; you hardly learn a thing about them. And it doesn't take long for the plot to become all but incomprehensible. As a result, it was hard for me to care about what was going on. Sure, it's visually striking at times, as well as being fairly slick despite what had to be a really low budget. I just wish that the filmmakers had put as much work into the script as they did with the visuals. It didn't come as a surprise when the end credits revealed it was a Canadian movie - it has that Canadian feel as well as pretentious attitude you often get in Canadian cinema. (Though at least the Canadian government's film funding agency didn't waste any of my tax dollars on this particular movie.) Maybe this might have worked as a short subject, but as a feature film it's pretty deadly.

I'm not a professional but I think this review is fair. *Zero spoilers*

The film reminds me of Dante's Inferno. The main character gets dragged confusingly into Hell, and he basically stares each demonic figure in the face and says "I dont know why Im here, but you dont scare me." The main character definitely hogs the limelight, but he is the perfect person for the role. The pacing is good. What I really liked this movie for though is it's sense of setting. This movie stands out as one of the best uses of budget CGI I've ever seen. I think this movie had almost no budget whatsoever- I saw that their Indiegogo (kickstarter) raised some $2,000 with a $45,000 goal. They got pennies. I couldnt see more info than that because I dont have imdb pro (yeehaw), but they really went all out with the CGI regardless, never shying away from animating some ludicrous demon on screen. That's always a peeve of mine- when they hide the epic monsters in the shadowy bushes etc and try to use the excuse of "oh its all mysterious bc you cant see it yet," when theyre obviously just cheaping out.There were literally only 2 times that I would call the CGI bad: one being some blood against metal (again, only one time this happened), and the other being sadly right at the end, where the greenscreen was painfully obvious. I was really disappointed by that, how they left one of their worst greenscreen shots in right at the end. There was also one small issue with props selection, but Im not going to spoil what it was. Youll probably know when you see it. Other than that though, the CGI is extremely effective dollar for dollar, and it's easy to feel like they really shipped this man and a camera-strapped drone to Hell to shoot these scenes. I also thought the ending itself was kind of bad for being too sudden and how they got there to be the most confusing part of the entire movie, aside from the final scene itself and brief soliloquy which was pretty good. I'd give this movie 7.5, and if you enjoy things demonic then you'll definitely find this a good watch. I didn't think it was too confusing, and it isnt aimless. If nothing else, it was a well visualized journey to the depths of Hell, featuring one bad ass old man, a pretty girl, some interesting villains, and a handful of demons.

This could have been a good flick but the story was too muddled. At the end of it, I find myself asking, what was the point of it?!

The CG / effects are hair better than a typical SciFi channel movie; with a bigger budget, the film's visuals could have been outstanding. As it is, sometimes they're interesting and other times they're almost distractingly bad.

As far as the acting, Stephen McHattie certainly stands out in a good way, but the rest of the cast are pretty standard and not all that interesting. Unfortunately, McHattie can't make up for the film's drawbacks, and ultimately what drags the film down is any lack of coherence or depth to the plot. The teaser "Hellmouth is about a gravekeeper who is drawn into a hell dimension to save the soul of a beautiful woman" sums the film up completely, and sadly, there's not really any depth to the story beyond this statement. This is one of those films that felt like it could have had real vision, but failed due to a lack of focus by the film maker.

Underrated actors... I was not sure about trying this movie at first and it was mainly due to him that I did but I am glad that I did! This was a great little find! As others have said, if you were not a fan how movies like Sin City were done then you may not be fond of this. I actually find that I like this style a lot, and found this movie to be visually stimulating as well as entertaining. Watched it late at night and was glued to it until the end. Yes, the overall story outline was simple but that doesn't mean it wasn't good. I would definitely watch this again and would suggest it to others that can appreciate it as a visually artistic piece of entertainment. The acting was excellent all the way around, they nailed that 50's film noir feel completely! Loved it!