Hell's Ground, promoted as Pakistan's first gore film, is a co-production from cult UK DVD label Mondo Macabro, who specialise in finding and releasing cinematic oddities from around the world, and Pakistan's Bubonic Films. Knowing that it was designed specifically to appeal to fans of obscure movies does detract from its appeal slightly—after all, cult films should be found, not made to order—but even if this had not been the case, I still doubt that Hell's Ground would have earned itself a permanent place on my shelf of splatter favourites.
The story, by the film's director Omar Khan, is a somewhat muddled affair, encompassing ecological issues, zombie horror, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre inspired backwoods terror; the pacing of the film is poor, the action taking an age to get going and ending up as a repetitive succession of chase scenes through a jungle; the characters are simply Asian versions of those seen in an average American slasher—the attractive good girl, the sexy rich bitch, the nice guy, the stoner and the film geek; and as for the blood and guts... well, there is some but it's not all that impressive.
Whilst I dig the fact that different nationalities and diverse cultures can be united by a common love for horror, I would love for the next gore film to come out of Pakistan to be a little less influenced by the west, and to live up to its promise of outrageous excessive splatter.
5.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to 6 for IMDb.
