Hell Fest | Film Review

Hey Guys x

This is a Netflix film (or a film on Netflix) that I immediately added to my list because of the familiarity of it. I feel like I've seen a lot of horror movies set in similar locations (Carnivals, theme parks, etc.), and I've always liked the idea of horror movies taking place in a completely public space, so I was really interested in this one.

On Halloween, six teenagers go to Hell Fest, a fun fair/carnival with a variety of horror based, games, mazes, rides and performances. However, soon the group are confronted by a masked man who is using Hell Fest to conduct his own version of a real-life hellish nightmare.

This movie wasn't unwatchable by any means, and while there were some things about it that I enjoyed, overall I'm not a huge fan.

The beginning of the movie, particularly the style of credits that are used, makes the movie feel like a classic '80s horror, which to me shows that the director knew exactly what style of film they were trying to make.

Horror films have to walk a fine line between story and scares. This film isn't strong enough without scares to have as much story as it does. It begins as almost a character-driven story, which doesn't make sense because the characters are not what we're watching the film for, it's the scares. To have so much going on before we even get to Hell Fest makes the first part of the film quite frankly boring.

One of the problems with trying to make this film character driven is that, although the characters have a lot to say, only one or two of the six actually have distinct personalities. The rest are quite bland and uninteresting.

And this is confirmed by the fact that, when members of the friend group go missing, in about five minutes, both the audience and the characters on screen forget that the missing ever existed, which made it feel like the members of this group who were supposedly friends before this night actually never were.

Speaking of the group of friends, they have absolutely no chemistry, they're not believable as a group of friends. But the thing is, it normally wouldn't matter in a film like this, because it should be story over character. The only reason that the group's chemistry matters so much is because the film is trying so desperately hard to prove to the audience that there is chemistry, but there isn't.

It feels cliche without actually being cliche. In the sense that, you feel like you've seen what's happening before. The premise of the film is fairly original, but when you break it down to a masked villain hunting a group of teenagers, we've seen films like this hundreds of times over.

One of the most disappointing things about the film was the way that Tony Todd was underused. Now, a lot of people might not share this opinion but, to me, Tony Todd is the undisputed King of Horror. So the fact that he is even in this movie at all is great. But what was the point of using him once, over an hour in, for a 30 second scene that wasn't even a part of the main scares? They might as well not have used him at all.

And then there's just that the film isn't scary. To it's credit, the situation itself would be completely terrifying if you were one of the people in that situation, but as you're not, you don't feel scared at all, for either yourself or the characters.

Lastly, the ending was weak and disappointing. I wouldn't call it predictable exactly, but it reminded me of the ending of horror movie 'ATM', just bland. However, it did add something to the story, but the thing that it added didn't change anything for me personally.

Overall, I'm not a huge fan and probably won't be watching it again, but that's not to say that it isn't enjoyable whilst also having its problems.

4/10

Lou