Hell Fest Blu-ray + DVD Combo Pack Review
By Paul Rudoff on Jan. 17, 2019 at 4:45 PM in Home Video, Horror
Hell Fest is a throwback to '80s slasher films. Is it any good? Read on to find out...
In Hell Fest, a group of friends - Natalie (Amy Forsyth), Brooke (Reign Edwards), Taylor (Bex Taylor-Klaus), Quinn (Christian James), Asher (Matt Mercurio), Gavin (Roby Attal) - are bound for a horror-themed Halloween event at a local amusement park; a sprawling labyrinth of rides, games, and mazes that travels the country and happens to be in town. But for Natalie, the ghoulish carnival of nightmares is not the attraction - it is a hunting ground. On the night the friends attend, a masked serial killer known as The Other (Stephen Conroy) turns the amusement park into his own playground, terrorizing the group while the rest of the patrons believe that it is all part of the show.
To the movie's credit, it doesn't take long to get going. The group of potential victims are at the park less than 10 minutes into the film. Said group includes Reign Edwards (the beauty with the bangs from the current MacGyver remake series), who reminds me of Valerie from Josie and the Pussycats with the cat ears she wears in the film; and Bex Taylor-Klaus (from the Scream TV series), who steals the movie with every thing she does and says. For horror fans, Tony Todd, the Candyman himself, makes an appearance as The Barker in a fun scene with Bex's character.
As the movie takes place at night, you wouldn't think that there would be much to look at, but you'd be wrong. This movie is a visual treat. The carnival is actually very colorful thanks to the unique usage of different colors in the fog, which gives the park a kinda of day-glow effect. It was quite fun to have the characters walk down one path with a blue fog surrounding them, then they turn a corner and it's instantly yellow. Kudos to the crew for giving the film a fun and unique look to it.
The movie plays like a homage to slasher films of the 1980s, with Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse (1981) seemingly an inspiration, especially given the similar tagline. For The Funhouse, it's "Pay to get in, pray to get out." For Hell Fest, it's "Fun going on, hell getting out." Hell Fest even follows a lot of the old tropes and cliches of slasher films. For example, after everyone at the park realizes that the murders are real, the park is evacuated with an announcement that attendees are to head to the nearest exit. Instead of following everyone else to the (surely) clearly-marked park exits, the remaining friends decide to go into another maze building thinking that it's the exit. Yeah, it sets up the finale, but talk about stupid people doing stupid things. The same for incapacitating the killer, but then leaving him on the floor rather than killing him once and for all. That's an old slasher trope if ever there was one!
I wasn't expecting much from the movie, but it was quite better than I originally thought it was gonna be. It had an ending that had a twist, for lack of a better word, that I don't think I've ever seen in any horror movie before. It leaves you with a lot of questions about the killer and his motives, and hopefully they'll make a sequel to give us some answers.
At a runtime of 1:28:48, Hell Fest is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio with a 1080p transfer. On the audio side, there are three English tracks - English DTS:X, English 2.0 Dolby Digital Optimized for Late-Night Listening, and English Descriptive - along with a Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital track. The film includes English, English SDH, and Spanish subtitles. The first print run includes a beautiful slipsleeve.
All of the bonus features that can be found on the disc are in HD. I was quite surprised, but very pleased, that the theatrical trailer was included, as you don't see that very often in modern releases.
- Thrills and Kills: Making Hell Fest (16:28) - A brief, but fun look at the making of the film with interview and behind-the-scenes footage, including cell phone video of the cast goofing around.
- Theatrical Trailer (1:09)
A Movies Anywhere/Ultraviolet digital copy code voucher is also included in the standard two-disc Blu-ray case.
I don't usually comment on box art, but I have to in this case. There's a movie poster (seen below) that would have been a much better choice for the box art than the bland washed-out image they used, which just shows The Other standing with an axe in front of a Ferris wheel (which isn't in the movie). You can't tell me that if you saw the image below on the shelf at Target, you wouldn't be interested in it.
Hell Fest is available on Blu-Ray/DVD Combo Pack, 4K Blu-Ray Combo Pack, and individual DVD.
All images were taken from the IMDB gallery of the film or were provided by Lionsgate. The Blu-ray+DVD Combo Pack has been provided by Lionsgate for review on this site.
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