MOVIE REVIEW: HELL FEST

On Halloween night, three young women and their respective boyfriends head to Hell Fest -- a ghoulish traveling carnival that features a labyrinth of rides, games and mazes. They soon face a bloody night of terror when a masked serial killer turns the horror theme park into his own personal playground.

Director: Gregory Plotkin

Cast: Amy Forsyth, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Reign Edwards, Tony Todd

Release Date: September 28, 2018

Genres: Horror

Rated R for horror violence, and language including some sexual references

Runtime: 1h 29min

Review:

Hell Fest is a bit of an enigma of a film.  It’s a fairly competent slasher film that’s as forgettable as its cast.  The central plot and setting is fun but it never seems to take advantage of it.  The sets make for some fun sequences but none of it is terribly memorable.  Instead we get a straight forward Halloween / Friday the 13^th clone that lacks any semblance of self awareness.  The cast is made up of terribly bland actors who serve as nothing more than cannon fodder for the killer.  There’s a bit of fun in figuring out who will get killed first but even that’s fairly predictable.  Hell Fest is the type of film that makes for decent Saturday afternoon watching on cable even though you’ll forget you saw it moments after it ends.

C

MOVIE REVIEW: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION

A family that has recently moved into a new house in Palo Alto, CA is terrorized by supernatural entities in the fifth installment of the Paranormal Activity horror franchise. The father Ryan (Chris J. Murray) discovers a box of video tapes left in the house and a video camera that can record paranormal occurrences that are invisible to the naked eye. Together with his wife Emily (Brit Shaw) and his brother Mike (Dan Gill) they must fight protect their daughter Leila (Ivy George), a six year old who is talking to spirits. Directed by Gregory Plotkin, who previously served as the editor on several films in the franchise. ~ Jennifer Lackman, Rovi

Director: Gregory Plotkin    

Cast: Brittany Shaw, Don McManus, Cara Pifko.

Release Date: Oct 23, 2015    

Rated R for some Horror Violence and Language    

Runtime: 1 hr. 35 min.    

Genres: Horror    

Review:

If you find yourself sitting in the 6^th installment of the Paranormal Activity series, you probably have some sort of lingering affection for the franchise or just needed someplace cool and dark to sit down.   In all seriousness, I’m the type of person who likes to follow through and see how things end.  This is supposed to be the last entry in the series and they’ve thrown in some tweaks that kind of goes against what made the series impressive in the first place.  The ghost camera is a neat idea but it just kind of throws out any subtly about the things that go bump in the night.  Instead we get to see everything coming from a mile away leaving very little to the imagination.  A few jump scares here and there don’t really make up for it.  Doesn’t help that the last act of the film starts mining just about every possession and creepy little girl horror movie trope you can think of.  It’s a sputtering end to the series.  By the time the finale comes, you can’t help but feel like you’ve watched this all before.

D