Hell's Highway

In a homage to material made infamous by the classic THE HILLS HAVE EYES, (complete with Winnebago, desert and climbable rocky formations), HELL'S HIGHWAY delivers a fun, fast paced shock romp that delivers the goods in style.

The basic story line is a familiar one: a group of partying college co-eds (Ashley Elizabeth, Aaron Buer, Brent Taylor, Jill Jacobs, Kelsey Wedden, Jessica Osfar & Ryan DeRouen) on their way home from a rave decide to take a back roads detour. With a rumored major drug stash dangling in front of them like a proverbial carrot, the group's leader Neil (Taylor) has gotten the 411 for the possibility of a lucrative cash score if the stash is indeed real and not just drunken babble.

On their way to the isolated and abandoned mining area, they stop at a less than gold star quality gas station run by the wary and horny owner Petey (Anthony Connell). After ogling the young women, he tries in vain to warn Neil and Lee (DeRouen) that "they don't wanna go near that place, ever", and that the desert would eat them alive, but of course he is ignored. The kids travel on but soon have an accident, stranding them in the middle of nowhere. With few options, Neil starts the long walk back to the gas station for help while Lee and Michele (Osfar) attempt to climb nearby high ground to get a cellular signal. From there, the story takes off as the now divided group soon encounter folks that could be kin to Michael Berryman's legendary interbred clan. On the way back to the gas station, Neil discovers a telltale message missed by the group as they drove by it the first time. An old wooden sign warns that trespassers will be eaten. The warning doesn't fully sink in then, but it's not long before our cast discovers that truer words were never scrawled in blood.

The film has everything a horror fan wants and requires: a great looking cast, a simple yet promising plot, a nice big feature look, a pinch of nudity and outstanding gore effects. It's very easy to see why this film won an award at the recent NYC Horror Film Festival for Best Make-up.

Well-written with some fun, snappy dialogue especially amongst the core cast, co-writers S. Lee Taylor and Steven Grabowsky do a nice job of working within the framework of the perilous universal story of being stranded in a place where you have no business being. The writers deal with the deadly consequences consistent with this type of story while adding some original spice to the proceedings.

Using the desert's beauty and ominous qualities to their best advantage, director/writer/editor S. Lee Taylor and D.P. Cort Fey do a great job of giving the film a polished look, treating the viewer to some interesting shots and effects along the way. Taylor, along with fellow jack-of-all trades writer/editor/make-up effects coordinator/stuntman double Steven Grabowsky, gives the film a nice pace and makes the most of editing room additions.

The attractive cast, headed by Ashley Elizabeth playing the surprisingly capable Tara, is certainly up to the task as imaginatively dispatched victims and battle to the bloody end survivors. Aaron Buer stands out as the endlessly entertaining Mack Daddy wannabe/Vanilla Ice clone Loopz. Anthony Connell and Jill Jacobs also do nice work as, respectively, Petey, the gas station owner with a bloody secret and Harmony, Tara's best friend and top-notch hood dancer.

Production design by Casey Dodd is solid, and costume designer Susan Wright knows that skin is in and shows off the talent's best attributes throughout.

Barbara Cohen and Joey Peters' music is solid, and Steven Grabowsky, Zee Graham and Cannibal Gargoyle (yep, that's the name in the credits, folks) are responsible for the award winning make-up and effects with the variety of bloody effects, body parts and kills.

HELL'S HIGHWAY is an entertaining trip into a menacing modern desert world first introduced to us in THE HILLS HAVE EYES, but this film does a wonderful job of taking that simple story line and having it's own fiendish fun with it.