Hellgate

I admit it...I made a terrible rookie mistake when I bought this VHS ten years ago. I was a young enthusiastic horror fan and the cover showed a nasty, aggressive skull. Above that, written in bloody letters was the title : HELLGATE !! This must be sooooo cool, I thought and I bought it. OK, now I'm a bit grown up ( physical, that is )and I know now that these kinds of covers are an indicator that the movie will be a terrible 80's cheesefest without a plot, laughable terror and annoying characters. And Hellgate fits right in to this category ! We're talking bats on strings, flashy blue stones of mystery and that sort of stuff...That's the whole basic idea, by the way. In an old ghost town ( called Hellgate...duh!) a rich guy discovers a blue stone. This stone can make the dead come to live again but if you aim it towards a creature that already lives...it dies in a gruesome way. This is found out because they test the ray on a goldfish ! I tell you, that's one of the cheesiest scenes ever. Anyway, the story goes on a couple of teenagers bla bla bla bla...the usual stuff which you already know and have seen many times before only better. The acting is hilariously bad, the tension is nowhere to detect and the opening scene ( which is some sort of flashback ) looks like an evil version of Grease. In conclusion : You'd rather visit you're mother in law and give her a foot-massage instead of watching this...

A motorcycle gang kidnaps a young woman, Josie, from a diner and brutally kills her. Many years later, the girl's father finds a magic crystal that can bring the life back to dead objects. He uses it to re-animate his daughter.

This film has a low rating and has generally been forgotten. And yeah, I can see why. It is no masterpiece and is definitely not a horror gem. I like the reanimation aspect, and the 1950s bit... and we have zombies, ax murders, and more...

If nothing else, the film is good for the very, very corny humor and the slow motion shot of a topless woman getting blown through a window by a shotgun blast. That is an incredible stunt, and by going in slow motion it is even more spectacular.

A group of college kids travel to the ghost town of Hellgate to find out the truth about a young woman who was murdered by a motorcycle gang in the 1950's.There,they are greeted by ghosts and walking dead."Hellgate" is a cheesy horror flick that will satisfy only the most undemanding fans of horror genre.The acting is terrible and the script is cheesy beyond belief.There is a fair amount of blood and gore including a nice decapitation scene,unfortunately the special effects are lame.The only reasons to see this stinker are a fish on steroids and re-animated turtle plus Abigail Wolcott as a hot zombie girl.4 out of 10.Only for fans of truly mindless zombie flicks.

I really have to ask myself what I expected from a movie that has Ron Pallilio from Welcome Back Kotter as the male lead sex symbol. Not much, I guess and that's exactly what I got! Not much! When I popped the DVD of Hellgate on I realized less than five minutes into it that I had seen this movie over ten years ago. You don't forget acting this bad! So the movie starts with three friends waiting for their fourth friend Matt (Horseshack!) to show up at their vacation spot. They while away the time telling ghost stories. One girl deadpans the tale of The Legend Of Hellgate, which is apparently the next town over. In a flashback we see an attempted rape gone bad that happened in Hellgate in the '50s. A bunch of no-good-nick bikers are at the malt shop and they decide to grab the big cheese mayor of Hellgate's daughter Josie and drive away with her. None of the town folk try to stop them. They drive Josie to a secluded area and rip her skirt off and Josie runs around in black underwear, bobby socks and sneakers looking like she should be doing an 80s aerobics video. (I swear they hired Abigail Wolcott to play "Josie" because she had nice legs...She even "strikes poses" while being carried away and raped! ) Well, her father - who is a dead ringer for Gomez Addams- comes to rescue her and in the process Josie gets iced.

Later on a guy in a mine finds a strange crystal that has the power to reanimate dead things. Here is where the cheesy special effects ("done by the people who did the effects in Hellraiser and Hellbound " the box trumpets!) debut as we see a very fake looking bat, a very fake looking fish and a very fake looking turtle spring back to murderous mutant life. (The turtle scene is actually pretty funny). Josie's papa goes to Josie's shrine (even her headstone has breast implants!) and reserrects Josie so she can lure people to the ghost town for him to kill. Why? I don't know why! Josie picks up Horseshack on the side of the road and seduces him. The seduction scene is a laugh riot! the music is insane! And I had never realized what a bad actor Horseshack is until I saw this: Even his sex scenes are unconvincing! And he's a pretty small guy. When he's lying in bed with Josie naked he's so small compared to her that he looks like a doll! Hahaha! Matt meets up with his friends and drags THEM to Hellgate . Why? I don't know. But they go. And of course they run afoul some zombie ghost town people who chase them around and try to kill them. Josie falls in love with Matt for reasons unknown and Matt's girlfriend is not amused.

Will Matt stay with the living dead girl or go home with his plain Jane girlfriend? Or will the zombies and John Astin's doppelganger kill him? Hellgate is a terrible film all the way around with bad acting, bad script, bad special effects, etc. but there was something FUNNY about it that kept me watching so if you like bad movies like I do you might actually find some entertainment in watching HELLGATE. I will watch it again one day just to watch Josie strike strange Vogue-like poses, a dead turtle bite someones face off and to see Horseshack in the raw again. Comic gold all three!

Speaking of bad movies, if you are lucky you will get the two disc set that not only has Hellgate but also has The Pit. The Pit is even funnier than Hellgate, a real laugh riot! So check that one out! Peace!

Everyone's a critic, isn't that what they say, Opinions in life are like that of a certain part of the body, we know we all have. Anyway when it comes to movies like "Hellgate" a low budget horror movie, we take one look at the cover and we find ourselves sucked in or suckered out, depending on your point of view.

Now low budget films fan's truly worth their salt, will have come into contact sometime in their cinematic life with the works of filmmakers like William Girdler[Day of The Animals, The Manitou] William Sachs[The Incredible Melting Man, Galaxina] or indeed the director of this South African lensed little gem[Oops did i give away my opinion on this movie so early] The Director's output will never send out shockwaves, although he did make "Blackenstein" and "Monaco Forever" my point is, everything the aforementioned directors have made has fallen into the category of, should i use the word exploitation, why not.

Good movies, Bad movies, it's all the same. We still feel the need to watch them, it begins with the artwork on the cover first remember. So anyway, "Hellgate" itself, it's been a long time since i've seen it, but my memories are still vivid. The notion that it was made in South Africa, is never apparent, although if you've watched many a movie made from there, you'll know the faces and not necessarily the names.

What does the movie have going in it's favour, yes it's does have it's faults, but i'm bot going to dwell on them. The Plus Points are, a snappy script, brought to life by the talents of a very droll Ron Palillo, yes i know that Abigail Wolcott looks hot, and that her acting skills weren't exactly up their with the likes of Meryl Streep, but hey that was not the reason she was hired for the movie.

The Director William Sachs, who if i may, makes a cameo appearance as a severed head in a fridge, gives the movie a competent look, and finally the soundtrack, if like me you like those golden oldies, the song that permeates throughout the movie, as well as playing out through the end credits is truly a gem, if inly i could remember the band who sings it.

Anyway, for those of you out there, who might not have seen "Hellgate" if ever you wondered, was it worth a look, is it any good, to that i say.

Hellgate a good film? Hell yes!