Back from Hell

I've seen a lot of junk in my day and I admit it freely. But every now and then a movie stands out for being so hideously inept you can't believe money ever exchanged hands in connection with it. Someone PURCHASED this? Someone spent money MAKING it? It looks for all the world like some dudes got some money together under the erroneous belief that all it takes to make a feature film is enough cash to pay for the film and equipment, and enthusiasm.

No, that's not true here because that's the biggest flaw of the movie--the two leads look more embalmed than any of the animated corpses, so enthusiasm must have been left out too! I wouldn't want to judge, but it's usually a good idea when casting leads to consider their abilities as actors...and their visual appeal! Maybe it's just me, but the sight of a pudgy guy with a mullet running around in late-80's stone-wash jeans (and please, God, if you exist, don't ever let that fashion style be resurrected!!) as a "hero" distracted me too much to enjoy this curdled, disappointing pile of mind-rot. Well, it WAS funny, but probably wasn't meant to be.

However! The filmmakers knew one thing--when you can't afford acting or sets or lights or sound or costumes or a decent script...bring on the splatter! It was the only thing that kept me from shutting this off--it was literally doused in blood, and grotesquely funny and satisfying in that sense. There's something heartwarming to a splatter fan when a filmmaker lets the camera linger on spurting grue, and here the grue sprays all over the actor's faces at every occasion. No, it makes no sense, but it's hilarious and satisfying cinematically to see the suffering actors repeatedly sit there and be drenched in red syrup, like a splatter version of the old show "You Can't Do That On Television" or something! This is one of the bloodier films I've seen, and I've seen some serious crap.

Other than that, utterly worthless, save your time and money for something else...

If you are a fan of MST3K then you will love this B Movie Jewel.

Jack sold his soul to the devil in order to get famous. Now for some reason a demon is trying to kill him. Jack is just walking down the street when he gets attacked. He manages to kill his attacker and throws a piece of his throat at a random passer by for no apparent reason.

The director then decides to film the railroad tracks for an unimaginable, unexplainable period of time.

Jack is worried about his mom so he goes with his priest friend to his mother house. The demons are waiting for him. Jack defeats the "demon" and ties the fat guy to a chair. But the demon is crafty. With a comical wink to the camera the demon pretends to fall asleep. Jack seeing this also falls asleep. But it was a trick! the "demon" wakes up to remove the well tied rope from around the chair. Jack manages to drive a powerful knee into the demon to defeat it. This amazing feat it gloriously displayed in slow motion a couple of times for the viewers delight. Jack also performs his own stunts like jumping over small walls.

The directors vision of the movie was to have blood splatter on various objects for effect, like the bible, the cross, the priests white shoes and peoples faces.

The best part of this movie is the ending, when jack actually meets the demon. He luckily finds a tree full of weapons in the wilderness to fight the ninja assassins off with. Jack also luckily finds a shotgun on the ground to finish them off with.

This movie is the funniest movie I have ever seen. It deserves to be #1 on the bottom 100 and I've seen the MST3K Manos and Monster A Go GO. This movie is worse!

When you meet so many people in your life who call themselves Christians (but will chastise, condemn, beat up, or even kill someone for something as minor as a Marilyn Manson shirt), you often forget that there are more interesting Christians out there who are actually somewhat fun to be around. It seems that it is people out there who are the latter that are ready and willing to make splatter movies in the name of Jesus Christ. The result is low-budget wonders like this rare, little gem that is way more fun than any kind of church sermon one might hate to sit through. (I, regardless of any of the very few religious/spiritual standpoints I might have in common with Christianity, I am no Christian and I REALLY HATE churches!) In this movie, Jack (Larry DuBois) is a young Hollywood star, who, to maintain his fame, has sold his soul to Satan. Jack must follow through with a human sacrifice, but he doesn't have the heart, making the forces of darkness quite upset with him. Any one person who looks into his eyes becomes possessed by evil and hellbent on killing him in some very unpleasant ways. So, Jack, having one last very old and long-lost friend to turn to, contacts (an unrealistically non-judgemental) Father Aaron (Shawn Scarbrough) to help him combat Satan's army of masked killers, Ninja-looking types who carry axes. It all culminates in an outrageous bloodbath of limbs sawed off, gallons of spurting blood, and airborne guts. The FX (done on an obvious shoestring) often look pretty cool considering the practically nonexistent budget and, though the acting truly is the ultimate pits, it all makes for one good n' cheezy splatterfest classic. (The highlights are definitely the demon hand that grabs Father Aaron by the crotch from his own bible and when the good father shouts, "Tell Satan I said he can kiss my black ass!" before firing off a bloody hole through one last adversary. The latter scene leads to a particularly bizarre and unexpected twist.) For undemanding fans of the gory and goofy (like myself), this is a movie that starts off with an unsure and slow-moving feel, but speeds up and comes to life rather quickly and unpredictably, grabbing you (no pun intended) until that hellacious grip just gets tighter and tighter, climaxing in a release of the viewer into a very strange (and oddly eerie) non-ending which will leave all watching thinking, "What the hell was that?" Still, I'm a fan of David Lynch and Gregg Araki, so I do know that this isn't exactly a bad thing. You won't really know until you try this one out all the way through, so I urge all daring and bored sickos to give it a look!

A priest and his friend must battle the forces of eeevil when Satan gets up to his old tricks again. World domination is his goal, and he'll use any means to attain it.

Or, something like that.

BACK FROM HELL is an astonishingly awful "film", complete with thrift store costumes, "actors" that must have been pulled right off the street moments before filming, and severely idiotic dialogue.

The main characters are brainless, and the diabolical minions they face are so poorly-realized that they elicit only laughter and groans. Even after taking the total lack of funding into account, this is a stench-fest!

MOST MEMORABLY TERRIBLE SCENE: The purple, rubber hand coming out of the bible to grab the priest's face. A real rib-tickler!

Watch this only if you want a bad case of cranial warts...

I first caught a viewing of Back From Hell on the Horror Channel a number of years ago, and I instantly loved it because of the fake blood, the sets, and even the music Matt Jaissle designed for the movie. For a bad movie, I know where the director was getting at. I know that from the locations the camera seems to be filming while the music is playing, is suppose to give suspense, or give a haunting atmosphere however it fails big time at giving anything like that. It inspires me because of how bad it is, and how amateur it is, If I was to start making b horror movies, Id start off at watching this because of the editing which is pretty bad, yes its so bad that its good. YES, it does fall into that category.

Its kind of strange that I loved this movie, the story is fine, and the background of Aaron and Jack is fine, the acting - the worst I've ever seen. First off this has to be one of the worst movies ever made, the sound seems so far away. The two main leads, and that cop seem as if they forget their lines most of the time. There is no emotion in their voice when they're talking,and when it seems like they give the impression that there is suppose to be, you cant help but laugh at some scenes. As other reviewers of this have said, there is some hilarious one-liners and action scenes with those satanic ninjas, and the make-up and gore is so bad its funny.

I tried for a while to get this on DVD, and luckily found a copy after some time on Ebay. If you love B-Movies, add this to your collection, its a good one.