Hands of Hell

Someone actually gave this mess a 10/10. It must be a relative of Gianna Lutz, the lead actress and writer of Hands of Hell.

Gianna and her boyfriend have escaped from a mental institiution and take over a small lakeside resort after killing the rightful owners, a Ma and Pa Kettle couple who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The pair of nut cases are being sought for some previous brutal murders.

Along come a pair of gay men and two straight couples seeking some time away from city life.

The acting is beyond bad and I wished for a quick and painful death for all six of them.

Thankfully, this abomination is only seventy-eight minutes. It could not have ended soon enough for me.

First of all this movie is pretty brutal and holds no punches. The movie description says it all: "Two lovers escape a mental institution and go on a murder spree at a remote retreat camp".

Produced by Andrew Evans and Gianna Lutz (who takes on the role of one of the lovers - Bianca) this is a vicious thrill ride from the very beginning.

Bianca and Zeke (the escaped lovers) are as twisted as it gets. They really enjoy what they do and it's really nasty stuff.

I really can't help but get Natural Born Killers vibes from this movie as well as 3 From Hell.

It's a great watch and some of the kills really sticks at the back of your mind.

Visually it's done very well. The kills are great as is the blood and gore. Even the things you don't actually see plays out in your mind which psychologically can be even worse as it can be quite unpleasant.

This is a hidden gem of a movie and well worth a watch.

The movie is short and sweet, which makes it easy to watch. The writers got super creative with the murder scenarios which is the most interesting part of the film. The killers are most definitely psychotic and their killing kink seems to be their only common ground. Would have liked to seen a bit of a backstory on the two of them, as well as some of the other characters. The film definitely did not lack blood and gore, but it did lack the necessary elements for "edge of your seat" suspense. In my opinion, the opportunity to get to know the characters would have really been a great asset to this film.

As with most movies I take chances on, I read the reviews and compare them to the numerical score. I'm a horror junkie, and with horror, there is such a wide swath of opinions that it can be difficult to know what you're getting prior to watching. Typically, anything rated under a 4.0 I pass on. Anything over 4.0 I'll consider it. In this case, I wish I hadn't considered it.

"Hands Of Hell" was really quite terrible. The good news is that it's nowhere near the worst movie I've watched. It is, however, circling the drain with a rapid swirl. The first red flag for me was the director, producer & writer also playing the lead. I'm 50 years old and have seen thousands & thousands of movies n' films, some of which were written & directed by the lead actor. I can count on one hand the number of movies that match this description which were what I would call "good" or "enjoyable." It just doesn't seem to work. And lemme tell ya... either does this one.

First and foremost, let me mention content, as it is something I look for when reading reviews.

Violence/Gore: there are a handful of kills in the movie, but there is ZERO gore, and very little blood. I noticed in the reviews that were in the 8.0-10 range the writers made sure to state that there is plenty of violence and loads of gore. It's obvious these folks know that viewers are looking for blood and gore but it's a shame they outright lie about the contents. The way the blood is used is also terrible. Every kill that occurs, blood instantly sprays back on the killer, no matter what the angle of attack is. So please note...VERY LITTLE VIOLENCE & NO GORE.

Nudity & Secual Situations.

There is no nudity to speak of. There are a couple of scenes where men remove shirts but there is no female nudity of any kind. That said, there are multiple scenes with women in bathing suits (bikinis to be exact). There are also a few scenes that portray a man & a woman BEGINNING to get intimate. Again, there is no female nudity- only bathing suits- nor is there anything more than men without shirts.

Drug/Alcohol Use: There are a couple of scenes that involve marijuana, but they pass very quickly. There are a handful of cigarettes smoked as well of a few beers and some wine, but nothing big.

Profanity/Frightening Scenes: Very little. There are a few curse words here and there but they are tame. Frightening? Hardly.

With regards to the film itself, the acting was pretty terrible. Like I noted above, however, it was not the worst of its kind, but it was pretty bad. None of the actors had any training in film acting and the delivery was really bad. It didn't help that the script was equally as terrible. It felt to me as if the writers attempted writing dialog as it would come out of the mouths of those speaking in normal conversation, but rehearsed. Awful delivery, wooden interactions, & no chemistry.

Directing and cinematography drove me nuts. Re: cinematography, I don't know what the heck they were trying to do, or if it was just my connection, but it felt like the camera was continually shifting between a modified slow my motion lwhich made it really difficult to watch.

Production: The production was among the the better aspects of the film, as the sets were existing buildings that were easily transformed in to viable buildings.

All in all, this is not worth the watch. Typically, I don't write Ill of films without vali reason, but I really don't appreciate reviewers who work on the film, or were affiliated with it in some way,, who then write and craft blatant lies about films and their content for the sole purpose of getting views.

That occurred with thuis.

You know it's a bad sign when all the 10 star reviews are for the only movie the person has reviewed, and in one case it's from one of the directors.

The directing was a bit all over the shop with the camera angles and shaky cam making it more distracting and there was a filter that made it seem blurry a lot. I'm guessing these days directors like to show they are cool by using a hand held cam, or maybe it's a cost thing, but it was terrible at times. And there were these shots that seemed to just be there for the directors ego as a way of saying "look at how I framed this shot"

It's a low budget film so don't expect any award winning acting but it wasn't that bad. There were times the main actress (the girl killer) was doing really well but it just wasn't consistent enough, and she was the best of the bunch.