5/10
Adult, gory , violent and suspenseful Western about some bandits hijack a stagecoach way station .
30 April 2023
This is a chiller western with shootouts , grisly killings , genuine thrills and shocks In 1865 the stage coach was the only mode of overland travel in the United States until the coming of the railroads . They transported merchandise , people , money , the post and gold . They were constantly under threats of attack by bandits . None could be sure of a safe arrival at their appointed destination except those of the company black hell. In a stagecoach stop far away in the Wild West the unexpected visit of a man called 'Colonel' (Pablo Scola) and his henchmen , will change their peaceful lives and they hold hostages to the passengers . Sisters Anne (Tania Watson) and Liz (Veki Velilla) recently lost their father. Now they want to fulfill him, or rather his last wish. To do this, however, they have to take the stagecoach through the middle of the Wild West of the United States. It is obvious that things are not always safe and harmless there. One day, while passing by, they stop at the black hell station. It is run by Chris (Víctor Vidal) and his father, Ernie (Denis Rafter) , who are quite an unlikely couple. Because while the older one is hardened by his experiences, Chris can't even hold a gun straight. During a refreshment bath for the sisters in the nearby river, the colonel and his two men suddenly appear. Leftover Civil War soldier loves to ambush passing stages, torture inmates and take belongings. How sadistic he is, the young half-breed, whom he has on his back and who has to serve him, he has been learning for some time. So now it's the turn of the two sisters , while waiting for a shipment of gold. All of them are trapped and mistreated by the heinous outlaws . Because they stand in the Colonel's way while he waits for a transport of gold from the Black Hell Company...

The trail station at which takes place the action is the main scenario of this extremely violent and thrilling movie. Nice and B-grade western with functional interpretations, chills, thrills, drama and a breathtaking bang-up ending. The plot is plain, simple and claustrophobic, but the development is complex, including a couple of nail-biting gunfights . Daing with the unsettling incidents happened at a stagecoach stop lost in the American West , where no one intends to stay longer than is just and necessary, the unexpected visit of a man they call the Colonel and who lives only by his own law, always stained with blood, it alters their peaceful existences to the point of pushing them to the limit. A so-so plot with plenty of cliches , as you should not rely on the text with which the writer describes the troubled content , because it throws up various roles and facts completely out of order and non-sense . Director Victor Matellano knows how to deal with the gore of the film . He already showed this in ¨Vampyres¨, ¨Wax¨ and ¨Vampus¨he does it here as well. With The Road to Hell, he directs a bloody mess , taking parts of classic ¨Henry Hathaway's Rawhide¨ (1951) , ¨Quentin Tarantaino's Hateful 8¨ and ¨Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13¨, which also doesn't shy away from rape and other horrors . The film is made in low budget since the setting is practically reduced to the Black Hell Station , adding a bit of harshness sets in. While the setting is quite atmospheric and the set pieces are quite gory, there are little praise to be made with the actors . Just like partly inappropriate musical score , though it is rarely used and many sequences are reduced to dialogue and ambient sounds. Because the wait for the carriage closes mainly with dialogues, which make it clear that the colonel is a pretty crazy guy, but sometimes they turn out to be more or less long and are not always fully understandable. By the way , the acts of violence are quite strong and disagreeable , being especially noticeable when the colonel goes to work with his beloved meat hook or uses the hammer lying around. On the other hand, the shootings, which Matellano likes to organize in slow-motion and thus pay homage to his Western models , particularly Sam Peckinpah , remain uncut . And in the end, the guns speak anyway, which only a few survivors know about in a standoff that lasts about ten minutes. Here stands out the brief appearances of some familiar faces , such as the Italian director Enzo G Castellari , and the Spanish actors as Manuel Bandera, Ramón Langa , Nadia de Santiago , Guillermo Montesinos , Andrea Bronston , daughter of the producer Samuel Bronston, and Antonio Mayans , Jess Frank's regular

¨Road to Hell¨or ¨Stop Over in Hell¨ is a tough neo-western, the bloody deeds of which cannot be seen in its complete splendor due to failed objections , but it certainly exudes a certain atmosphere. If you feel at home in the genre and can get past some rough spots, at least you'll get well-illustrated super slow-motion shootouts . The motion picture was regularly directed by Victor Matellano , but he sustains interest enough by maintaining the claustrophobic tension and he stages some nice action scenes. Victor is an expert on terror movies , as he also directed : ¨Stop over in the hell¨ , ¨Wax¨ , and Short movies such as ¨La Cañada De Los Ingleses¨ , ¨¡Zarpazos! Un Viaje Por Spanish Horror¨ or ¨A Journey through Spanish Horror¨ , ¨Stacatto¨ and ¨Tío Jess¨ . His films are plenty of raw eroticism , grisly murders and depraved gore .
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