Hell's Highway

If you enjoy a good cheesy movie I suggest you pick this one up. The sorry acting, the 5 cent effects, and Ron Jeremy. What more could you ask for in a good cheesy film? I would get it on DVD so you can get some real slow mo so that you can see just HOW cheap the effects really are!

This nifty little NO BUDGET shocker was a surprise to me. It was made by talented kids but still they're kids and it shows. There's a lot of stuff that's either lifted from other films, or supposed to be in homage to other films. You'll know it when you see it, and this is typical of kids just starting out making films. They have this whole sensibility that it's funny and hip to reference other films in their work, little "in jokes" that their social circle all get. The interviews with cast and crew at the end show this level of immaturity. Still, there's enough original stuff here to make it worth seeing. I got this because of the nice box art and well written synopsis, but when I saw it was shot on video, and not even very good video, I thought it was a mistake to watch. But I gave it a chance and was surprised at the many good points, and of course it is uneven yet there's enough good in it to give congrats to the writer/director for coming up with a literate and interesting script with a nice plot twist that's totally unexpected. Good acting by Ms. Dollar as the evil "entity", and some good grisly effects, though I wish she had handled the chainsaw a little better. Plus there's not really any slow or tedious points. It would be interesting to see the director do this again but in about 15-20 years when he's grown up and got more experience and a bigger budget to shoot it on film or HD. The basic story is literate enough to do it again and make the weak parts stronger, cut out the silliness and kid stuff, give it an overall sense of maturity and really develop the twist ending more. It's actually a good enough weirdo story to rank with the film stories of DePalma and Stephen King. Anyway, you won't be bored.

HELL'S HIGHWAY is a low-low budget film starring Phoebe Dollar as Lucinda, a hitchhiker who is far more than she appears to be. She's an unstoppable, murdering force without any sense of right or wrong. Though human in appearance, Lucinda is actually a relentless, demonic spirit. When she's picked up by four college kids, she begins unraveling their sanity and their lives in several blood-soaked attacks.

What this movie lacks in big effects, it makes up for with sheer brutality! Ms. Dollar makes the best of her role, filling Lucinda with pure eeevil!

Watch for Ron Jeremy as a doomed motorist...

"Hell's Highway" has a somewhat interesting plot despite the cliches thrown in it, and it's quite enjoyable for most of its presentation.

What wrecks this horror/bizarre comedy are its cheap production values, painfully yet hilarious editing, weak special and makeup effects, and the atrocious acting from the ensemble casting, except the leading woman Phoebe Dollar as the sexy hitchhiker who needs to kill whoever pickes her up on an endless desert highway. She does a great job, seductive and scary. Considering that basically everyone comes from softcore and/or porn movies where acting isn't the required need except for the hot action, they're all better in what they did outside of this picture. But there's hardly ever any sex in here.

It revolves on a group of college kids driving through a desert highway and when the mysterious Jacinda asks for a ride they're in it for something extremely dangerous that could cost their lives. There's a legend about that place where a couple died in the 1800's trying to cross it, and a curse sprung out from there as a woman kills whoever crosses her path and she needs to add more and more victims to her list. Among the victims there's big name of porn Ron Jeremy playing a failed film producer who tries to make an "audition" with the girl and then comes an hysterical moment.

There are fine moments of thrills and horror to make you fully invested in it as we try to antecipate what comes next. Then, it becomes weirder, funny (intentional or not), with one lousy dialogue after another, and the image quality shot on video is simply dreadful. "Hell's Highway" is one of those flicks that cannot be taken seriously, and if you're in it for some good laughs you're about to be deeply rewarded, but also annoyed. There's no way that the girls in the car would accept Jacinda simply because the boyfriends thought she was hot - those girls should dump them right there for simply that opinion. There are other things to be complained but better not.

Why I was watching this? Pure boredom, perhaps, but mostly it was a curious view in seeing Jonathan Gray outside of softcore flicks, maybe see some different acting skills outside of hooking up with babes. Great looking dude and quite a good actor in those films. Here, he was wasted badly. Poor delivery of lines and cheesy acting (like basically everyone there), it's simply weird. But the script doesn't help anyone either. The scene where the fate of his brother is revealed was awfully written and his reaction was non existent. Where's the big cries, the big shouts, the huge "NOOOO". It became something else, it's unbelievable.

An embarassing experience but not a complete waste of time. It's destined for "special occasions" when you need to watch something bad, laughable and trashy. 4/10.

Part of the fun of watching this film is due to the "special effects", as they appear humorously unrealistic. Another element of fun are some of the lines and the way in which the actors deliver them. What is interesting is that these elements draw attention to the medium through which they are transported, which helps add to the surreal mood of the film. Phoebe Dollar is as irresistibly hot as ever (the finger bang scene is very erotic), even when she plays to the 'southern white trash' stereotype. All in all, this film achieves, what in my opinion, it set out to do: entertain the viewer. Give this film a look, and check out some of Phoebe's other work too (Goth), if you like, what I call, "surrealistic cinema".