The Burning Hell

An utterly bonkers 'scared-straight' tactic by evangelists. For its time, the imagery of the hellscape depicted must have been terrifying for susceptible southerners, but today, this level of fear-mongering is akin to a cult's bombardment of brainwashing. The acting is god-awful and so wooden you could nail someone to it. I understand why this was not intended for public release as this is a production not even the Mother Mary would be proud of. Ironically, this is one of the most unethical films I have ever seen and should only be viewed for comedic purposes, or for a glimpse into the mind of a narcissistic preacher with too much power.

I thought this was a very interesting movie. I believe they should do a re-make of this movie. With the graphics we have now this would be a hit. I hope Hollywood does not let this movie collect dust and be forgotten. Someone please clean off the dust and at least put the movie on DVD even if they don't do a re-make. Young people will truly get an eye opener off this one. With our society changing so fast and so much, it's time for a reality check. I am sure in this day and time this movie will cause great controversy but facts are facts. Who really wants to go to hell. Not I. I can hardly stand the heat in South Florida. After seeing this movie, it changed my whole perspective about life and who I wanted to be in charge of my life. I can certainly tell you that I definitely want to be in heaven with the Lord and not in the burning hell with the devil.

Movies don't get much worse than this. Even though I agree somewhat with the point it means to make (there is a real hell, it is horrible, and those who don't trust in Jesus Christ will go there forever), I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone for any reason. It is inexcusably bad art. It made the rounds in conservative evangelical circles in the late 1970s doing little more than turning hard people into harder ones. Worse yet, two of the featured preachers, Hyles and Gray, were later discovered to have lived secret lives of sexual degeneracy. Both have now passed away and may well know all too well the truth of their words to which they themselves would not listen. If movies could go to hell, this one would spend eternity in its deepest pits.

Ron Ormond's "The Burning Hell" may be one of the strangest films ever seen by the general public. It was never intended for public exhibition but was made by a group of evangelicals for Church members, disappeared and was then rediscovered by Nicolas Winding Refn who remastered the original print. It has a home-movie feel to it and, of course, it's terrible and appallingly 'acted' by its amateur cast, (it's mostly just a load of preachers preaching to us), and yet exploitation director Ormond keeps us watching, perhaps in slack-jawed awe and disbelief at what we're actually seeing, (the scenes in Hell are straight out of the worst Grade-Z horror film). This is trash, more likely aimed at sinners than saints and the best thing about it is that it only lasts an hour.

Ridiculous, but quite hilarious evangelical edification sermon pulls all the usual triggers to scare you from going to hell; full of remarkable gory depictions of hell, amateurish reenactments of Biblical scenes and lots of insincere preachers and bad acting.