MOVIE REVIEW: "Hell Fest" (2018)

Culture Crypt

Synopsis: Over the night of Halloween, a group of friends decide to get together and celebrate the date by visiting a trendy theme park that promises a true night of scares and terror. The fear becomes real when they begin to be chased by a masked killer.

This kind of movie that tries to innovate based on a veritable rain of clichés that drinks straight from the classic source of the horror and suspense of the 80's and 90's, but which nevertheless can't break free (no matter how hard you try). endeavor) from excessive inspirations and ends up sabotaging itself even in its happiest moments, where everything should really work.

Bloody Flicks

There is no doubt that the biggest hit of the script (the smartest idea) is to play the focus of all atrocities where they are practiced: in the amusement park itself. This gimmick makes the plot interesting because the fact that the murders take place in front of the visiting public creates a natural climate of tension.

Believing that everything is really part of a grotesque show, everyone ignores any distress call and buys the idea of ​​the park, which is genuinely scaring them. It's a consistently growing atmosphere that can work to a certain degree. In a way, it catches the viewer's attention... However, the film is not sustained by its countless mistakes and especially because virtually all the script's arguments fail and make it all an empty experience and lacking in really scary elements.

Kinepolis

Consistent mistakes surround this 2000s pseudo slaher on all sides, and in particular two more items (aside from the script itself) need to be mentioned: a reasonable cast and that despite having a trace of chemistry on the screen embody very poorly constructed characters and equally underdeveloped and a direction that despite the good intent throughout the project fails to impose itself and guide the film on the path it deserved (Gregory Plotkin easily gets lost in his own work and doesn't establish what he wants to do).

The filmmakers had an incredible collection to be inspired by (at various times in this movie you can see other works from past decades), but the desire to recreate many elements including modern aspects was such that everything seems to have been thrown on the screen without least been revised so that at least everything - even if it was bad - would make sense in the end result.

Entrando Numa Fria

By investing in a few deaths with a heavier blood load and violence (remembering, at times, the gore style), the film misses great chances of creating even more engaging events to raise the low level of the plot... Which by the way , tries at all costs to stand up but is not strong enough to do so. It is really disappointing to see all the potential lost.

Despite a work of photography and art direction that explores the park's scenery well (you can "travel" to many of the place's attractions as if it were really there) and an interesting production for a movie of this subgenre, the end result is sleepy and it gets even worse because it has a lazy climax that still has the audacity to try to set a cult climate (by the way it ends) with at least questionable resolution (I particularly found a terribly bad conclusion)!

Boca do Inferno

In the end, Hell Fest is a watchable movie (oddly enough, above average by today's standards) that will appeal to a newer generation of movie buffs (those who don't know the really great copies of the 80's and 90's)... But that will undoubtedly displease movie buffs who surely must have watched countless films like this one (which because it fails to innovate, it automatically becomes forgettable when rising credits... or even before that).