Hard Ride to Hell

This is a very solid DTV movie. In fact, it could've been a part of those Masters of Horror series had it been shorter and tighter, the atmosphere is exactly that. The pacing is fast, the stuff that's supposed to be funny is funny, and what's meant to be scary - is scary enough. Hard Ride to Hell doesn't just feel like some grindhouse movie, it feels exactly like a sequel to From Dusk Til Dawn. I wasn't bored for a minute. The presence of Miguel Ferrer adds to it, but doesn't overshadow the movie itself, which says something about the director. Look at her resume, at least by now she definitely knows how to make a movie look good.

A group of teenagers whilst on their camping trip in Texas witness an obscene blood sacrifice performed by Satanic bakers on two nude girls.Our young friends must fight for their lives.The remaining survivors gather in an abandoned church for the final battle between good and evil..."Hard Ride to Hell" is obviously influenced by "Race with the Devil" and "Devil's Rain".Unfortunately the script is woeful and the characters are irritating.There is some decent gore,but I expected more blood spraying.Katherine Isabelle of "Ginger Snaps" fame is pretty wasted here as is Miguel Ferrer as the leader of devil-worshipping bikers.A generous 6 out of 10.Rather bland and forgettable horror flick with corny dialogue.

Now here's a movie that captures the sort of drive-in, grindhouse feel that I like. In spite of its low budget, it's a pretty well-made, acted and written tale of a group of traveling friends who inadvertently come across a group of Satanic bikers in the middle of a sacrifice and soon find themselves fighting for their lives. You had me at the mention of Satanic bikers, but the movie itself is paced very well. It's bloody and moves quickly. There are some acting issues, but there always are with low budget DTV movies, and there's enough going on that it's not a problem. Major props for the use of mostly real special effects. There's a tiny bit of dodgy CGI, but it's way better than a lot of other low budget films. Also, the ending is a tad anticlimactic, but there's so much fast paced violence before it that it goes down easy. The characters are handled well, a group of kids doing Habitat for Humanity work as well as a traveling salesman who's pretty handy with a knife. Also, Miguel Ferrer is perfectly hammy as the evil biker leader and seems to be having a lot of fun in the role. Though it's got some similarities to a few other films, there's plenty of fun things to enjoy: Satanic rituals, unkillable bikers (one biker gets his face dragged along moving asphalt....great scene!) nudity, torture, stabbings, and women impregnated with demon children. This throwback could've easily played at drive-ins in the 70s. Not the world's greatest horror movie, but a lot better and more fun than most of the garbage that goes straight to video.

This would be a video nasty in the 70s I guess. It's up to you to decide if you think this means it is out of date too. I think there still is an audience for this and it isn't all that bad as the rating might suggest. Having Miguel Ferrer in there gives the whole thing a lot of credibility. On the other hand you have a lot of clichés played out, with kids acting up (or not acting, depending on your view of things, I guess).

While the kids could and should have been more sympathetic (a mistake other movies have made too), I did like the knife salesman. The actor who portrayed him had a good little job on this one. All in all, you can see where this is heading ... the first few minutes should indicate if you like it or not

A group of friends drive their camper to an isolated camp site in Texas. They drive by a blood smeared car wreck. Jason wants to help but Danny refuses to stop. Danny and Tessa had suffered a miscarriage. Kerry plays around with the CB radio and a creepy trucker responds. The group encounters cutlery salesman Bob Weaver at the desolate campsite. Dirk gets lost in the woods and stumbles onto a devil-worshiping cannibalistic biker gang led by Jefé (Miguel Ferrer) with female victims. Dirk is discovered and the group is taken captive by the gang.

It's a low budget B-horror. It's filled with the standard tropes. It isn't high quality but I like some of the actors. Ferrer is a solid baddie and he tries to do his one-eyed best. Once the group is taken, it's a lot of slow torture which gets repetitive. The escape is less than convincing. Of course, explosive car chases with stunts and great choreographed fights would be so much better. In the end, this is not good enough.