Hells Half Acre(2008).
© Blackplague Films
DVD: Hells Half Acre
Rating: Unrated
Starring: Tesia Nicoli, Bob Weick, Ken Schwarz, Todd Labar
Written By: Scott Krycia and Sean Tiedeman
Directed By: Scott Krycia and Sean Tiedeman
Distributor: Blackplague Films
Original Year of Release: 2008
Extras: Making of Featurette, Deleted Scenes, Photo Gallery, Original Trailer
HELLS HALF ACRE
By: Robert T. TrateDate: Saturday, April 12, 2008
Low budget horror can be a mixed bag of thrills, ingenuity and, more often than not, stupidity. What really got my attention with Hells Half Acre is that in the first seven minutes there is a “paid announcement” titled Wake Up Call For Parents. This “paid announcement” sets the tone for the film. Deciding to either go with it or against it those first few minutes shape Hells Half Acre profoundly.
Opening with an upset mother (Dawn Reed) who has purchased screen time to openly discuss her disgust with the film Hells Half Acre was an ingenious way of placing this low budget film into the Grindhouse genre. Her complaints expressed in a cheesy public access setting were so good and typical that I actually believed her. It became obvious by the end that this was a joke with the inconsistent camera one and camera two shots. However, the first couple of minutes became a mouth watering prelude for the carnage that was about to ensue.
Hells Half Acre opens with a crazed boyfriend looking for his girlfriend in a man made catacomb beneath a suburban house. After finding her twisted naked body, he and his friends take her torturer, Bob Moore (Bob Weick), and burn him alive. The horror of the moment is further escalated as they indiscriminately tie up Moore’s son, Derek, and burn him alive as well.
The film jumps ten years later where the anniversary of the brutal killings is being remembered. However, after a short informative news broadcast we follow a young couple that parks on lover’s lane, the place of the brutal killings. Steve (Steve Mittman) and Nicole (Tesia Nicoli) are brutally attacked by a crazed ghost (Todd Labar). Nicole runs to the police where they lock her up because of her hysterics.
The next day two policemen find Steve murdered. They are quickly stalked and killed by the same ghost. From this point it becomes a Grindhouse film with leaps in the story and judgment for the characters that many viewers would only scoff at. Why does this ghost need a gun? Why does he attack that church group? Why would anyone use “evil” Dutch angles anymore? Will anyone survive? Who is this a ghost of? Do we really care about the characters or do we want more killings?
Tesia Nicoli as Nicole ties it together rather well, bringing believability to the absurdity of the story and the situations. Her determination to see this killer put down is all that kept me watching, that and the answer to whether or not this film could fill all of the requirements of the Grindhouse genre.
When the credits start rolling and the band Spitshine started singing their “Hells Half Acre” song I knew that this film was supposed to be tongue in cheek. If only Scott Krycia and Sean Tiedeman would have played on that more instead of bouncing back and fourth between Grindhouse film and horror movie. I wouldn’t have been as disappointed as much and could have enjoyed the ride from beginning to end.
You can order Hells Half Acre from their website.
