Hellmaster

Hellmaster has a few things going for it. The best is that it scored two good horror names in the cast: John Saxon (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and David Emge (Dawn of the Dead). The second best is the storyline involving Saxon as an insane professor experimenting on the homeless and his college students with a drug he calls the reward. David Emge plays opposite Saxon as the hero who's been tracking him for years. After his "death", Saxon returns to campus twenty or so years later to further his experiments. He and his army of the homeless drive around in the Happy Face Bible School bus with a huge cross strapped to the grill. It's the creepiest bus I've ever seen. There's a great scene where one of Saxon's minions is driving around a campus security car dragging the guard's bloody body. There is also imagery of bleeding walls, mutant junkies, and scarification. Hellmaster has the making to be a good horror movie but most people find it hard to get past the terrible acting (other than Saxon). And there are a few other stupid elements in the movie. Like why would a college student carry around a whip, people in trouble saying Mayday, and other atrocities. I don't know if it was the film it was shot on, but sometimes it feels like a home movie too. Eighties horror fans should still enjoy, I know I do.

It's a fun film. Good story, good gore. John Saxon is great. It really captures the horror of the early 90's in my opinion. The antagonist characters are quite creative. I was surprised at how much I liked it. My wife even watched parts and had input. She doesn't watch horror. I also really liked the score. It's well done.

1969- "The Nietzche Experiment;" a US government scientific experiment has created a superman drug to induce telepathic abilities. The problem is it's headed over by a mad doctor (John Saxon) who's not above trying to cover up the grotesque mutations that ensue.

"20 Years Later," Saxon is still at work with the chemical, and four surviving mutants (his "children") attack and kill coeds at The Kant Institute of Technology. A reporter and others set out to stop the madness.

The main problems here are that most of the violence is offscreen (the best FX are saved for the ghouls), the film is overpopulated by boring college kid characters (most of whom can't act) and the script stinks (and is often downright senseless). The direction is flat and uninteresting aside from some minor Dario Argento-inspired sets and basic lighting tricks, which somehow fail to impress in this context. Still it's entertaining to see David (DAWN OF THE DEAD) Emge in a rare appearance and Saxon does what he can with his limited screen time. Aside from those two, the film is entirely forgettable.

Score: 3 out of 10

I apologise in advance if this comment isn't very enlightening, but after watching the DVD, reading the blurb on the back of the box, and checking out what others have to say, I still don't know what Hellmaster is really about. Terrible editing, a confusing script, and dark cinematography, plus a plot that is almost impossible to fathom, all go to make this one a bit of a head scratcher.

I understand that the great John Saxon is some kind of scientist who has developed a drug that he tests on homeless people, and that David Emge (Flyboy from Romero's Dawn of the Dead) is trying to stop him; I can see that a bunch of students are being offed by Saxon's mutated guinea pigs (who have silly names like Joey Monkey Boy and Bobby Razor Face), but why they are doing so escapes me. Beyond that, though, I haven't a clue.

Why are the mutants all disfigured in different ways? Where did the killer nun come from? Who painted that big spiral on the wall behind John Saxon? How did they find such a dreadful actress to play the little girl (she's all grown up by now, so I don't feel too bad criticising her performance)? These are just a few of the questions you'll find yourself asking about this execrable excuse for a horror film.

Oh well, at least there are some silly gore effects, and hottie Amy Raasch, who reminds me a bit of a young Jennifer Connelly, gets stripped down to her undies (the whole gubbins, sussies and all) and then takes off her bra to flash her thruppennies!

This movie's reviews would have you think it was absolute trash. It's not. It's not good, don't get me wrong, it's just not that bad either. The 90s were a wasteland for horror. The genre bottomed out in the 80's due to a mixture of bad press and lowest common denominator filmmaking, and this certainly falls into that category. It's a movie made by kids in their early 20s about a psychotic professor (the always great John Saxon of Enter the Dragon, Tenebrae, A Nightmare on Elm Street 1, 3, and 7, and From Dusk Till Dawn) who has accidentally mastered the ability to control people's minds. So, he does the next logical thing, builds a weirdo family of mutilated Hellraiser knockoffs and returns to the college campus that turned on him to exact revenge. Again, not a great movie. But not a terrible one either. There's enough weird visuals, John Saxon evil (never one to phone it in, he does enough self-important evil maniac to satisfy his fans) and general weirdness to keep die hard horror fans interested. But the thing is the 90's were something of a dead zone for horror. There were a few great movies (In the Mouth of Madness, Scream) but, generally, they were weird, disjointed garbage. And this movie is certainly is that. Relative to lousy straight-to-video movies, it's above average, but still not good. I've seen both the director's cut and the theatrical version and, honestly, there's not much difference. A few character beats and that's it. I didn't hate it and there's much worse but the movie only works as a time capsule or as an interesting example for fans of B-list icon John Saxon of what happens when he plays a power drunk psycho. A few decent visuals, mid-level gore, and one tacked on nude scene. Watch if you dare...