Hellmaster

When you're an avid fan of a certain B-movie star, you inevitably also have to struggle yourself through tons of irredeemably bad low-budget movies simply because your idol made the unwise career choice of starring in them. For instance, being a fan of Jeffrey Combs caused me to suffer movies like "Cellar Dweller" and "Lurking Fear", and I felt the need to endure "Dracula 3000" and something called "Revenant" only because I like Udo Kier. Now, I'm an even bigger admirer of John Saxon than I am of Jeffrey Combs and Udo Kier combined, and thus even pure crap like "Hellmaster" becomes fundamental viewing! Big, big, BIG mistake, as this is a hopelessly retarded horror movie and even Saxon's sinister performance can't save it. The script of this thing is completely senseless and dumb, yet somehow it has the pretension of being an ambitious and even intellectual tale of terror. Saxon occasionally appears as a demented professor who tested a newly invented mental drug on a bunch of homeless people back in 1969. Things went a little wrong and the guinea pigs turned into deformed monsters. Now, more than 20 years later, he's back in the catacombs of a university for gifted people (yet, all the students are rather stupid) and he hopes to pick up his experiments. Our nutty professor is hindered by an obtrusive journalist (David Emge) who lost his wife to the drug as well as by some redundant students. The structure implemented by director Douglas Schulze is terribly annoying. Pointless flashbacks are followed by present days events and then stupidly blend with hallucination scenes and sub plots. It feels like Schulze wants his viewers to connect the pieces of the puzzle themselves, but you just don't care about it enough to do that. Quite a few gory murders are committed by the freak-monster shown on the DVD-cover (some kind of crossover between Hellraiser's Pinhead and Pumpkinhead), but I never really figured out whether he was one of the homeless guys or one of the fresh student species. John Saxon acts on automatic pilot, as if he very well realizes it's an inferior production, and the rest of the cast is downright abominable. This piece of junk somehow managed to gather a small fan base, but my advise it so skip it, even if you consider John Saxon to be a demigod.

This movie has some great scenes. The story is not very good, and the movie does not flow very well, but thanks to the miracle of fast forward, you can enjoy all the fun scenes and make up your own story.

David Emge of 1978's Dawn of the Dead is one of the good guys. John Saxon, who had a long and distinguished acting career is the evil villain, mad doctor. He invented a serum injected in the base of a victim's neck, that steals their souls. It also turns them into evil zombies of a sort.

Mama Jones is the evil nun, played by Ron Asheton of Iggy Pop and the Stooges fame. The guy with all the scars on his face is played by Eric Kingston. He had a very short career, but he does a really good job as a psychotic killer in this movie. Neil Savides plays a creepy little zombie boy, and he is excellent and super-creepy. There are a couple of other satanic zombies in the cast, and they all do a pretty good job of being creepy and scary.

Robert Dole plays the good professor who is trying to stop John Saxon. Emge, Dole, and a couple of students (Amy Raasch and John Croteau) are all trying to stop the satanic rights, but all of the good characters have issues with each other, and are not fighting together. That is one of the flaws that makes this movie more choppy and confusing than it had to be.

One bright spot is Dave Dixon, the famous Detroit DJ who also became a famous Night Owl movie host in Miami, makes a cameo here as the radio announcer.

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...

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.

At last, this films gets a rework that it so richly deserved. Way cooler than the '92 cut. Douglas Schulze has proven that you can make really cool horror films on a shoestring budget, without sacrificing production value. Mike Goi's cinematography and color palete are reminicient of Dario's masterpiece "Susperia". Saxon is dead on as the insane college professor (we've all had a share of these types in our lives!) and David Emgee adds a "Kolchek-the Night Stalker" coolness to his role as the investigative reporter. But who can forget Ron Asheton of "Iggy Pop and the Stooges" dressed as a psychotic nun! If you dig creepy, stylish horror films, this one is for you!