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HORRORHOUND #33

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(2009)
Directed by Dave Parker
Starring Sophie Monk, Tad Hilgenbrink, William Sadler, Janet Montgomery, Alex Wyndham, Ewan Bailey, Danko Jordanov

Tyler is a film student who is obsessed with a ‘80s horror film called THE HILLS RUN RED. The film was pulled from release shortly after it premiered and none of the cast and crew has ever been heard of again. The director, Wilson Wyler Concannon (played by the always entertaining William Sadler), seems to be one of these crazy directors who think film is something more than just a movie. So Tyler sets out to try to find this lost film, making a documentary about the whole trip.

I was finally able to see this film that came out last year, with a lot of hoopla. I heard both good and bad reviews on it, but didn’t want to read too much about it before seeing it. To put it in simple terms, this movie had the potential to be amazing. There are parts in here that are great. But the problem is that there are also parts in here that are not so great. And that brings the film down dramatically. I won’t even comment on the usual trappings that it uses or borrows from other films, since when you’re making a slasher film, it’s hard not to step on any previously walked paths. But it’s how you walk down that path that can make it an exception. And at times, they do just that.

Directed by Dave Parker, who previously had done THE DEAD HATE THE LIVING (2000), has at least done something that is very hard these days. And that was to come up with the look of the killer that is very memorable. In this day, when masked psycho killers are almost interchangeable, Parker has given us one that is both scary and will stay in your mind for quite some time. The look of Baby Face with the broken doll face is very memorable, and is something very hard to do these days, with all the other psycho-slasher films being made.

Tyler hopes to get the help of the director’s daughter, who also appeared in the film when she was a little girl, and is now a drug addicted stripper. Which leads to the first problem I had with the film. Apparently going to film school teaches you how to help someone kick a heroin addiction, in what seems to be in a matter of days. I’m not an expert on the subject myself, but it just seemed so unrealistic, that it had me laughing.

There’s a few other parts that had me a little confused, but don’t want to give out any spoilers or details. But I do want to talk about one scene briefly, though it doesn’t really have any spoilers in there. But it’s about a part that had me scratching my head, since it didn’t make much sense. Although, since there were a few different screenwriters, that might be part of the problem. Once we find out who/what Baby Face is, it seems to follow the rest of the story. But there is one sequence, which was pretty damn scary, but then makes no sense for the rest of the film. Once Baby Face captures one of the girls and has her tied up, she is trying to sing a lullaby to him to maybe calm him down. He’s staring right at her, inches from her face, with the heavy, grunting breath, and then in a perfectly normal voice, tells her she can keep singing if she wants. So as creepy as that moment is, we’re thinking that this character really is just some guy in a mask and not the demented adult child that we’re lead to believe. But as it turns out, HE IS the demented child! So to me, it makes no sense, other than for that effect.

But, all the strangeness and plot holes aside, when the movie does reach a high point, it hits it good. Once of those high points in the music, by Frederik Wiedmann. He does a great job enhancing the mood throughout the movie. Even his little bluesy theme for the strip club is perfect. Another great part of the movie is the gorgeous Sophie Monk, who plays the daughter Alexa. Not only is she just stunning, but she’s also in many forms of undress in the first part of the movie. She definitely makes watching this movie a lot easier on the eyes. The film does have a lot of gore in it, though some of it is a little obvious that it’s CGI. But there is still enough of the gooey stuff to make gore hounds happy.

So the bottom line is that if you go into this film expecting the greatest film ever made, then you might be disappointed. But if you go into knowing that it’s just another slasher film paying homage to all those films of the ‘80s, then I think you’ll be pretty happy with it. You just have to be prepared to let a few of the loose ends go and not think about them too much.