They Found Hell

Tried to watch this film, the utter stupidity of the characters was too frustrating. You will scream at your tv even if were in a great mood prior to viewing this mental atrocity. Oh and their mythical "hell" is just an abandoned factory with a couple flames here and there. Yes, really.

Released to TV for Halloween, 2015, and directed by Nick Lyon, the unimaginatively titled "They Found Hell" concerns several American college students who inadvertently open up a portal to the underworld and find themselves trapped in the damnable dimension, desperately trying to find a way out.

This TV-horror flick has several things in its favor, such as a grave ambiance, well-done infernal sets and a decent cast of no-names who take the material seriously, including three quality females (Mirela Burke, Katy Reece & Kabby Borders). Unfortunately, the hottest one buys the farm prematurely, which I predicted in the first few minutes.

Another problem is that the movie is decidedly one-note from beginning to end. In the first 10 minutes the youths are thrust into the netherworld and the entire story consists of them seeking escape. Thankfully, there are a few creative elements, like Charon and the River Styx, but that doesn't make up for the one-dimensional nature of the proceedings.

Instead of establishing the characters and building suspense, the movie opts for horror right out of the gate, which continues to the climax. This is reminiscent of 2005's "Death Tunnel," but that pic worked (at least in my opinion) because it combined the one-note approach with mesmerizing visual style and kinetic editing work (which, to be fair, some people found needlessly confusing). "They Found Hell" is pedestrian by comparison.

There are also similarities to 2008's "Flu Bird Horror," but it lacks that movie's compelling story and fascinating subtext (I'm not kidding, see my review for details). Still, there's enough good here to give it a watch if you can handle Grade B horror flicks. Best of all, it has Mirela Burke for about 35 minutes and you can't beat what the costuming department dreamed up for her.

The film runs 87 minutes and was shot in Sofia, Bulgaria. The screenplay was written by Neil Elman & Nicole Jones-Dion.

GRADE: C+

Considering this is a SyFy channel movie, I wasn't expecting a great deal. Not to say they haven't made good movies in the past, but within the constraints of made for TV movies. However I was very pleasantly surprised. Basically in the first 10 minutes you find out a group of students have been experimenting with teleportation, and after something goes wrong, they are sent to what is possibly either an alternate dimension, or hell, or both! It is somewhat of a Sci-Fi/Horror crossover (although the only real Sci-Fi component is the teleportation) that doesn't take itself too seriously, and is all the more enjoyable for that. Imagine Supernatural meets Grimm if it was written by Clive Barker (Hellraiser). There are some quite gruesome (for TV) scenes, although the special effects budget doesn't always do them justice. The scenery and settings were atmospheric suitably hellish, and the action doesn't let up throughout. In all this was a thoroughly enjoyable experience!

reviewers notes humbly submitted:

1. Traditional narrative tells us any story needs a beginning, a middle and an end. This script disposes of the beginning. By the 3:00 mark you are in the middle. Daring. Ballsy. Cool.

2. "This is like a bad trip man." (dialog). Do people still say that? I know I once said that but I am way old. Haven't young people evolved since then?

3. Speaking of evolution, I prefer the new horror meme to the old one. The old one was that young people went to summer camp and as punishment for being young, healthy (and under-appreciative of those qualities) they were killed one by one. The new meme is is that young people try to tamper with the space-time continuum and also get punished. I like it.

4. Despite such promising ideas, at the end of the day this is still a low-budget film with pretensions of not looking like what it is. Typical of its class, by the 3/4 mark the budget seems to run out and the director relies on closeups in dark rooms. Not to extend the dramatic impact. But because they are cheaper to do.

There were a couple imaginative moments, but the remaining is largely predictable. The soundtrack is horribly irritating, and the girls' screaming - without anything happening but yelling at each other and freaking out, gets tremendously annoying. Since the music does nothing to help, it is only because of one good twist in the middle of the movie that I watched it untill the end. Because of it, it deserves to be labeled "horror movies". But I would still recommend to watch something else if you are looking for some Thrill...