Hell's Highway

Two couples traveling through Death Valley to the California coast pick up a hitchhiker from hell (Phoebe Dollar). Havoc ensues. The infamous Ron Jeremy is featured in a glorified cameo.

"Hell's Highway" (2002) proves that an ultra-low budget doesn't mean a movie can't be entertaining. Yes, some of the gory parts are cheesy (while others are pretty impressive) and a miniature set is obvious, but both are serviceable (and somewhat charming) and keep the story flowing. Viewing the trailer, I thought this was going to be a horror comedy, but it's not; it's essentially a serious slasher with cheesy effects and campy elements, particularly Phoebe as the over-the-top nefarious hitchhiker. Jeff Leroy shows his genius in that "Hell's Highway" is adept spare-change filmmaking and genuinely amusing DESPITE the obvious cheapness of it all.

Without Phoebe in the key role, however, it wouldn't be half as effective as it is. She's not blow-your-mind beautiful or anything, but she has a unique look and there's something alluring about her demeanor, not to mention she has curves in all the right places. Beverly Lynne (Monique), with her conventional "hot blonde" look, can't hold a candle to her (she has an unnecessary softcore sex scene, for anyone who might be offended). Kiren David, as Sarah, is the third main female in the cast and is a convincing actress. Actually, all the main cast members take the material seriously and offer respectable performances.

The score/soundtrack didn't do much for me, unfortunately. This is a movie that needs a few quality rockin' numbers. The last act features a couple of creative twists in the story and shows that Leroy put some time into the script. But, as semi-enjoyable as this flick is, there are regrettably too many unnecessary nasty elements to give it a higher grade.

The film has little filler at a mere 70 minutes and looks like it was shot in Southern California.

GRADE: C+

This one ranks with "Dead Girls" as a movie that had a pretty neat twist, but also as a movie where the pretty, neat twist that was shot all to hell by how bad the movie was. This one does deliver with the gore, though. One sign that this movie is going to be worse than bad appears early on in the movie when characters exchange dialogue that is lifted shamelessly and DIRECTLY from "Detroit Rock City" (of all movies!). You can even see this part in the trailer, as if they were proud to be ripping off said goofy teen comedy. Not much later, dialogue is lifted from "The Hitcher" ("I'm gonna sit here... and you're gonna drive.") Now some of this dialogue-lifting could be a tribute (as opposed to blatant ripping off of others' material), but these filmmakers seem to be the former types when looking back at the scene with "Detroit Rock City" dialogue. As a horror movie, it has some moments of dread and such, but most of this was so bad I couldn't even laugh at it. The gore FX were done better than I've seen them in many no-budget movies, but when the gore (aside from the would-be interesting twist ending) is the only redeemable point, there is a problem. It was a great idea put to death as horribly as the victims. And, as for the scene where they rip off "Blair Witch" and want to be taken seriously, I wish I could've laughed at that, but the joke was already stale aside from the fact that these people aren't good at jokes (again, they ripped-off dialogue from "Detroit Rock City"!), unless you consider this whole movie as a joke. Still, even though I like schlocky stuff a lot more than you might think ("Terror Toons", from the same company, being a personal favorite), this movie sucks even by bad movie standards.

If you ever decide to watch a film like this, please take into consideration that it was probably shot for the price of a used car and in the spans of a week. Total Roger Corman/Ed Wood style, so you should never expect a Spielburg quality film(His catering budget is usually bigger than the entire budget of a film like this.) So what does a film like this have to offer a viewer? A dialog heavy script with thick subplots and well known actors? Mind blowing special effects? Beautiful breath-taking 35mm Cinematography? No, but it has couple things that make it unique. Despite the fact that it was probably shot on a camcorder, some of the shots were well planned and executed. Unlike the normal all-hand-held Shot-on-Video features usually do. Of course the Director and the Cinematographer were the same person, which can be difficult. The Characters were unique, yes at sometime they were over-the-top or flat at certain times, but I feel that they were tolerable. It's also obvious at time there was a lot of ad libbing and some of it didn't work. I am a fan of Beverly Lynn though. She started out in the Brain Damage world and has definitely out-shined many of her counterparts. I do hope that she will grow in her craft and lands roles that will gain her the respect that she deserves. This was Phoebe Dollar's first film credit, she definitely shines as the evil Lucinda. She is definitely a presence that will go far in the future. The story also is unique for the fact if you actually try to follow what's going on, you will be pulled in many different directions and will be left still wondering what exactly happen. It definitely had some interesting twists in it. Now onto the special effects, outside the low quality of the video image the special effects look even worse than normal. They are totally laughable. Especially Joe Haggerty's blow to the head.( Which can really be the charm of a film like this, where the gore is so over-the-top that it's actually funny. I can imagine how a movie like this would be in a college dorm, with a room full of drunk men.) Especially when watch the toy model cars driving by or see the miniature gas station blow up! That was funny!! I had to rewind to make sure I saw what I thought I saw!! The Sound was something to be desired. It was for the most part inconsistent. Some of the sound effects were very "fake" sounding and again laughable at times. There also obvious continuity issues like switching props, road movement in the background in a car scene when the car is supposedly stopped. But what do you expect when you can afford re-shoots? To me this movie, seems to be a turning point for the whole Brain Damage world. Where their movies started moving up the ladder from their pocket-change budget beginnings. Good job Jeff LeRoy!! If you want a movie that scares you, it probably won't. If you want a movie that will challenge your intellect, don't rent this. But if you appreciate the micro-budget, and want to see something different that the normal movie studios wouldn't put out, then you might want to check it out.

This nifty little NO BUDGET shocker was a surprise to me. It was made by talented kids but still they're kids and it shows. There's a lot of stuff that's either lifted from other films, or supposed to be in homage to other films. You'll know it when you see it, and this is typical of kids just starting out making films. They have this whole sensibility that it's funny and hip to reference other films in their work, little "in jokes" that their social circle all get. The interviews with cast and crew at the end show this level of immaturity. Still, there's enough original stuff here to make it worth seeing. I got this because of the nice box art and well written synopsis, but when I saw it was shot on video, and not even very good video, I thought it was a mistake to watch. But I gave it a chance and was surprised at the many good points, and of course it is uneven yet there's enough good in it to give congrats to the writer/director for coming up with a literate and interesting script with a nice plot twist that's totally unexpected. Good acting by Ms. Dollar as the evil "entity", and some good grisly effects, though I wish she had handled the chainsaw a little better. Plus there's not really any slow or tedious points. It would be interesting to see the director do this again but in about 15-20 years when he's grown up and got more experience and a bigger budget to shoot it on film or HD. The basic story is literate enough to do it again and make the weak parts stronger, cut out the silliness and kid stuff, give it an overall sense of maturity and really develop the twist ending more. It's actually a good enough weirdo story to rank with the film stories of DePalma and Stephen King. Anyway, you won't be bored.

What can I say? My fiancee and I one night decided that it would actually be fun to go ahead and rent some low budget horror films to get us laughing. C'mon, what other horror movie could you see Ron Jeremy in? This plan worked effectively. We were rolling on the floor even before the previews were over.

The special effects were horrible (i.e. the priest's head exploding after being hit with a shovel, the missing appendage of Mr. Jeremy, and the incredibly gory dragging torso), the acting worse, and the characters out of a low budget porn movie.

If you need a laugh, rent this!