Trailer—Hellbent

A minor, if sometimes inventive spoof, Hellbent is given some class by the likeable Phil Ward in the lead. His funny performance is low key but very effective. Other than that, this is for fans of straight to video obscurities only.

Director Richard Casey made one of the most bonkers movies I've ever seen, Horror House on Highway 5. I'm pleased to report that this movie - which melds Faust and the Los Angeles music scene in a mix of the first two Decline of Western Civilization films to create a blast of pure strangeness. Imagine if the Dark Brothers or Rinse Dream made one of their films with no *, but after doing even more drugs and never sleeping. It's that good. Lemmy (Phil Ward, who shows up Horror House on Highway 6, as well as being the art department for Space Mutiny, if you can believe that) is the lead singer of a band that's not going anywhere until he meets Mr. Tanas - pronounced tannis, like the root or spelled backward like...oh you get it - who offers him fame in exchange for his soul. That's the basic story, but this cough syrup drinking, drug abusing, machine guns in the recording studio affair is unlike any movie you've watched before. David Marciano, who plays Mr. Tanas, would go on to appear on the show Homeland. Phil Therrien, who was Dr. Mabuse in the two Highway films, is also in this. If you're looking for a movie where a hobo screams "Black Betty," where a mother looks for her son by killing everyone she comes near, where sound engineers act like a jerk to everyone near them, where singers proclaim that they are Satan's son, a gang called Satan's Cheerleaders and a cursed establishment called Bar Sinister, well, look no more. It's not great, but it's awesome. If you understand that sentence, you're going to love this movie.

Hellbent (1988) * (out of 4) A band member sees that his career is going no where so he approaches a bar owner to manage him. The manager agrees to do so but in return what the man's soul. HELLBENT comes from director Richard Casey who had previously made HORROR HOUSE ON HIGHWAY 5. That film there was one of the worst slashers that I had ever seen yet it was so darn weird and strange that you couldn't help but be somewhat entertained by its crudeness. This film here is certainly much better made than that one but there's no question that it's not nearly as entertaining. There are a lot of issues that I had with this film but the biggest was the fact that all of the characters were rather bland and for the life of me I couldn't care less about what they were doing. This here is the biggest issue with the film. Whenever you can't root for or get into the characters then it's really hard to feel anything else throughout the movie. It's easy to see what the director was going for but it just didn't work at all. None of the situations that the bad go through are dramatic or contain any suspense. The madness that's scattered throughout the picture adds up to very little. The performances range from decent to poor and there's not enough sleaze or anything else to make you really pay attention to it. HELLBENT just doesn't have anything going for it.

Hellbent is, primarily, a punkified retelling of the Faust legend, in which down-on-his-luck singer Lemmy (Phil Ward) makes a deal with devilish promoter Mr. Tanas (an anagram of Satan... how clever!) and becomes hooked on cough syrup with whisky chasers; the film also features a sub-plot that sees young mother Sally (Cheryl Slean) taking drastic action to rescue her kidnapped baby from Tanas's henchmen. The two plot threads come together for a bullet-riddled finale. This is one weird movie... so strange at times that one wonders if the cast and crew weren't chugging back the Robitussin and whisky themselves whilst filming. While some may enjoy the film's offbeat 'do-whatever-the-hell-we-want-how-we-want' approach, I found its punk attitude extremely tedious, the bizarre dialogue, aimless direction and awful acting almost having me reaching for the Tixylix and Wild Turkey myself (the film has got to be less painful while under the influence). Writer/director Richard Casey definitely makes some bold, nay, head-scratching choices: a guy smashes a watermelon with his forehead for no reason; a wild audience beat each other up; the kidnapped baby is made to huff industrial solvent; Lemmy is mistaken for a performance artist; and, strangest of all, Tanas's right-hand-man Duke (Phil Therrien)-who is holding Sally at gunpoint-puts down his weapon to have an impromptu hand shandy, allowing Sally to pick up the revolver and shoot him in the chest. A curiosity, for sure, and definitely a product of its time, which sometimes is enough for me to have a good time, but on this occasion I wasn't feeling it.

Struggling punk band lead singer Lemmy (a solid and likable performance by Phil Ward) makes a deal with sinister music promoter Mr. Tanas (smoothly played with slimy aplomb by David Marciano) in order to achieve the fame and success he desperately yearns for. However, it turns out that said deal comes at the cost of Lemmy's soul. Writer/director Richard Casey keeps the gloriously goofy narrative moving along at a constant quick pace, offers a vivid and vibrant evocation of the 1980's West Coast underground punk scene (the sequence with a bunch of punks slam dancing and beating each other up at a seedy club is positively hysterical), maintains a quirky tone throughout, delivers several startling moments of bloody'n'brutal violence (one poor guy gets blown away in front of a giant plastic Santa Claus statue!), sprinkles in a satisfying smattering of tasty gratuitous female nudity, and tops everything off with an ambiguous "happy" ending. Moreover, it's acted with considerable zest by a game no-name cast, with especially lively contributions from Lyn Levand as the zonked out Angel, Cheryl Slean as the feisty Sally, James Orr as smarmy lackey Spike, Phil Therrion as booze and cough syrup swilling thug Duke, and Leigh Lego as fed-up bassist Jane. Jim Gillie's bright cinematography gives the movie a cool neon look. The groovy punk soundtrack hits the right-on rockin' spot. A nifty curio.

source: Hellbent

Director Richard Casey made one of the most bonkers movies I've ever seen, Horror House on Highway 5. I'm pleased to report that this movie - which melds Faust and the Los Angeles music scene in a mix of the first two Decline of Western Civilization films to create a blast of pure strangeness. Imagine if the Dark Brothers or Rinse Dream made one of their films with no *, but after doing even more drugs and never sleeping. It's that good. Lemmy (Phil Ward, who shows up Horror House on Highway 6, as well as being the art department for Space Mutiny, if you can believe that) is the lead singer of a band that's not going anywhere until he meets Mr. Tanas - pronounced tannis, like the root or spelled backward like...oh you get it - who offers him fame in exchange for his soul. That's the basic story, but this cough syrup drinking, drug abusing, machine guns in the recording studio affair is unlike any movie you've watched before. David Marciano, who plays Mr. Tanas, would go on to appear on the show Homeland. Phil Therrien, who was Dr. Mabuse in the two Highway films, is also in this. If you're looking for a movie where a hobo screams "Black Betty," where a mother looks for her son by killing everyone she comes near, where sound engineers act like a jerk to everyone near them, where singers proclaim that they are Satan's son, a gang called Satan's Cheerleaders and a cursed establishment called Bar Sinister, well, look no more. It's not great, but it's awesome. If you understand that sentence, you're going to love this movie.

Struggling punk band lead singer Lemmy (a solid and likable performance by Phil Ward) makes a deal with sinister music promoter Mr. Tanas (smoothly played with slimy aplomb by David Marciano) in order to achieve the fame and success he desperately yearns for. However, it turns out that said deal comes at the cost of Lemmy's soul. Writer/director Richard Casey keeps the gloriously goofy narrative moving along at a constant quick pace, offers a vivid and vibrant evocation of the 1980's West Coast underground punk scene (the sequence with a bunch of punks slam dancing and beating each other up at a seedy club is positively hysterical), maintains a quirky tone throughout, delivers several startling moments of bloody'n'brutal violence (one poor guy gets blown away in front of a giant plastic Santa Claus statue!), sprinkles in a satisfying smattering of tasty gratuitous female nudity, and tops everything off with an ambiguous "happy" ending. Moreover, it's acted with considerable zest by a game no-name cast, with especially lively contributions from Lyn Levand as the zonked out Angel, Cheryl Slean as the feisty Sally, James Orr as smarmy lackey Spike, Phil Therrion as booze and cough syrup swilling thug Duke, and Leigh Lego as fed-up bassist Jane. Jim Gillie's bright cinematography gives the movie a cool neon look. The groovy punk soundtrack hits the right-on rockin' spot. A nifty curio.

Hellbent is, primarily, a punkified retelling of the Faust legend, in which down-on-his-luck singer Lemmy (Phil Ward) makes a deal with devilish promoter Mr. Tanas (an anagram of Satan... how clever!) and becomes hooked on cough syrup with whisky chasers; the film also features a sub-plot that sees young mother Sally (Cheryl Slean) taking drastic action to rescue her kidnapped baby from Tanas's henchmen. The two plot threads come together for a bullet-riddled finale. This is one weird movie... so strange at times that one wonders if the cast and crew weren't chugging back the Robitussin and whisky themselves whilst filming. While some may enjoy the film's offbeat 'do-whatever-the-hell-we-want-how-we-want' approach, I found its punk attitude extremely tedious, the bizarre dialogue, aimless direction and awful acting almost having me reaching for the Tixylix and Wild Turkey myself (the film has got to be less painful while under the influence). Writer/director Richard Casey definitely makes some bold, nay, head-scratching choices: a guy smashes a watermelon with his forehead for no reason; a wild audience beat each other up; the kidnapped baby is made to huff industrial solvent; Lemmy is mistaken for a performance artist; and, strangest of all, Tanas's right-hand-man Duke (Phil Therrien)-who is holding Sally at gunpoint-puts down his weapon to have an impromptu hand shandy, allowing Sally to pick up the revolver and shoot him in the chest. A curiosity, for sure, and definitely a product of its time, which sometimes is enough for me to have a good time, but on this occasion I wasn't feeling it.