Hellgate

Intriguing horror film about a young woman who is kidnapped and murdered. Years later she returns as a ghost who lures travelers to a ghost town filled with zombies and other various creatures to die. However, she falls in love with her latest victim and is intent on keeping him to herself. Good complex premise with detailed characterizations and many interesting flashback scenes and other various legends, but poor acting & special effects and almost inept direction destroy it. Rated R; Graphic Violence, Profanity, Nudity, and Sexual Situations.

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!

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.

It is always hard to review a movie that is just so bad. Hellgate proves to be one of those movies. Starring Ron Palillo of "Welcome Back Cotter" and playing a smaller part in "Friday the 13th Part 6", this is absolutely the best this movie can muster, other than some nudity of the co-star Abigail Wolcott as Josie.

The story unfolds in classic manner: we start with a flashback of a biker gang coming into the town of Hellgate. They kidnap Josie and murder her in front of her father. Her father, distraught over the death of his daughter, finds away to bring her back from the dead using a mysterious stone that was found in a mine. Unfortuanitly, he goes mad with power and turns the town of Hellgate into a ghost town. 30 years later, two couples end up exploring into Hellgate to find out about the mystery and get more than they bargained for.

I saw this film about 10 years ago and couldn't remember whether it was any good or not to watch over. So, with a little bit of searching, I found a fairly decent copy of this flick. I will put it this way, this is a hard film to sit through. It starts off kind of interesting with its back story but just goes on a tangent of hopeless boredom, bad acting, and horrendous script writing. Most of the movie seems to be torn from a bad comedy or an old fashioned horror film and not melding together with pretty results. And the worst part is the ending just falls flat on its face with absolutely NO real climax. The only part I really liked was Josie's crazy father in the movie, who apparently can't speak a word of English.

Altogether, if you have a very high tolerance for movies such as this, go ahead and check it out. Otherwise, stay very VERY far away. 4/10