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Hellgate (1989) - William A. Levey


When I started this project I knew fair well that the horror genre is full of these terrible "Straight-to-Video" or "Schlock" films that were made pretty much to fill space. William Levey is responsible for some real classics. Could you hear the sarcasm? I looked through his catalog and spied such classics as Slumber Party '57 and Blackenstein. Yes. Blackenstein. 


Our antagonist is a deranged old man on a power trip. He had witnessed his daughters vicious murder at the hands of a biker-gang and now terrorized anyone that entered his town. His weapon of choice is a strange magical crystal rock that shoots lasers, reanimates the dead, and blows shit up. Hence the power trip. This guy eventually brings his daughter back to life, essentially as a sexual predator that would help him lure in unsuspecting guys. Enter this group of teenagers that try to survive this picture when curiosity leads them into this hellish town. 


The group is bland and stagnant with little character or emotion in their acting. In fact this movie feels like it had very little effort put into it. Aside from a few scenes of passable gore this movie has very little to keep it going. They show a gratuitous amount of skin and sex but do a horrible job of making it remotely alluring. It's just weird and kinda gross. There is a particular foul massage scene that's just... nasty. 

The direction is the main problem here. William Levey did a horrendous job. I know that he's know for these types of movies but this is just appalling. You can't overlook the major issues this movie has from the sound and editing all the way to the cinematography. Every single aspect of this movie is bad. The jokes are dated and obnoxious as are the soundtrack choices. The soundtrack was not good. It was full of public domain numbers and didn't do anything to help move the movie along. It had some story lines set during the fifties, so you get to hear a lot of generic rock music that all sounds a little too familiar but just off by a bit. It's really strange. 

I'm not saying that a great deal of this movies budget was spent on cocaine but it sure wasn't spent on quality control. I can't, in right mind, suggest that anyone unearth this flick. It serves no purpose. It's not scary. It doesn't illicit any type of emotion other than boredom. These movies came out in droves and this wasn't the last of them. Unfortunately on this journey I am going to run into some drizzling crap. This is one of them. 

Director: William Levey
Starring: Ron Palillo
Country: USA and South Africa

Did ya know...
This movie was filmed in South Africa. 

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