Hellweek

            At the beginning of Hellweek (2010), audiences will probably notice that this is a serious low-budget film.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the movie stinks.  I happen to really enjoy low-budget productions, and they definitely strike me if they are well written, or have decent acting (or both, if we’re lucky).  Anyway, I digress.  So the film is obviously low-budget.  That’s fine.  There is still some great footage sprinkled throughout the film, so I can look past the whole…bad lighting, barely-there sound thing.  Hellweek is about some college kids who are hazing new fraternity and sorority students by making them visit a local haunted house in Cleveland.  Only, the kids don’t realize that the place is actually haunted – so when they start bringing their friends around the site a bunch of crazy shit starts going down. 

            Remember when I said decent acting can make a low-budget film seem completely worthwhile?  Well forget about it in this film.  When I first encountered Rob Jaeger as J.J., all I could think was: “Is this guy trying to be Stiffler?”  That’s right, I said it.  Stiffler.  In a horror film.  The hell?  Anyway, I generally prefer actors and actresses that create their own brand, not wear someone else’s, if you get my drift.  Karen Fox, to me, seemed as though she literally stole Rose McGowan’s facial expressions and mannerisms for this film as she portrayed ‘Cara,’ J.J.’s naïve girlfriend.  The acting actually worth mentioning in this?  Umm…  

            So is the film at least well-written, you ask?  Meh…I suppose that depends on your definition of ‘well written.’  With lines such as: “We’ll go find some other cum dumpsters to hit on,” I doubt that there will be many intellectual debates about the depth and/or layers of this film.  The best line, hands down, of the film was: “Underneath her burned skin was clown makeup,” which the actors delivered and reacted poorly to.  There were a couple of legitimately funny parts, and one dude actually does say: “I’m off like a prom dress!” which was fucking hilarious.  Overall, however, I’d say the dialogue was not given much thought.  In fact, I’ll put it out there: the dialogue sounds as though it were written by someone who lives in the backwoods of Central, IL…as I’ve actually heard some of this dialogue upon traveling too far away from the city.

But it’s fucking horror, and horror doesn’t always have to be intelligent, or witty, or even have good acting.  It just has to have some blood, somewhere.  And this movie certainly has plenty of blood.  With a loud-ass chainsaw buzzing through at least half of the film, there is plenty of blood to soak through even the most absorbent maxi pad.  One of the killers even wears a clown mask, which was actually kind of frightening, but that could just be due to my dislike of clowns.

Number of killers?  Six or more!  Boob count?  Zero…wait…what?  ZERO boobs?  Are you sure this is horror?  Cheap thrills?  Less than or equal to two.  Raven’s Scream Meter says:  1.5 out of 5 screams…and the .5 is only because of the chainsaw.