Sunday, February 10, 2013

Happy Hell Night (1992, Brian Owens)

Some serious potential with this one, although it buckles into just another post-slasher bore-fest of the early 90s. Remember that? When the slasher genre had pretty much worn it's self out around the tail-end of the 80s and it was just impossible to get any new franchises off the ground. It never happened for Dr. Giggles and it never happened for Zachary Malius of "Happy Hell Night"...

A crazy, demonic-looking priest - imprisoned in an asylum for massacring a bunch of college kids 25 years prior - is accidentally set free by a couple of idiots who break into the prison for a fraternity prank. He runs around on Halloween night - armed with a mini pickaxe - killing party-goers.

There's some kinda demonic tie-in when Darren McGavin shows up, explaining some haphazardly conceived back story that they fail to make clear throughout the entire fucking movie. The kill scenes are moderately gory, but nothing at all special and there's only one scene of brief nudity. The only positive note I got on this is the killer. He looks fucking creepy! That's where the previously mentioned "potential" came into play, but was ultimately lost by EVERY other piss poor execution in the construction of the muddled story. Also, it's just cliche and bland. Don't even bother with this one.

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