This brings me to "Hellgate." I should have probably expected mediocrity from this one under normal circumstances, but it had the audacity to flash the words "Cary Elwes" and "Hellgate" at me - a combination of words that just sounds awesome. Who doesn't want to see Cary Elwes entering a gate of the Hell variety? That just screams entertainment value. Plus he's a great actor who doesn't get nearly enough work, so anytime he pops up I'm down for an hour and a half sit. And Oscar winner William Hurt is in it too, which is also sweet. Sounds like fun.
Fun is not a word I'd use to describe "Hellgate," however. There's another word that fits it much better, and while that word doesn't start with an F, there is an adjective that does which can be added in front of it. The word is "Boring." If you slap that mystery adjective on the front of that word, it gives us the phrase F_______ Boring. What that word starting with F is will be left for you to deduce.
"Is it Fezzik?"
"Hellgate" is such a nothing of a film. It's an hour and a half long movie which moves at such a glacier pace that I would have sworn it was closer to the length of the 4 hour extended cut of "Return of The King" had I not been checking my watch constantly to see how much longer I had to sit there.
The idea is that Cary Elwes is Jeff, a guy who visits Thailand with his wife and son when a car crash in the opening scene blissfully cuts short the disturbingly horrendous acting by anyone in the car who isn't Cary Elwes. When he awakens from his brief coma to find his wife and son died in the wreck, Jeff starts his rehabilitation only to find that he's seeing a bunch of creepy things that won't leave him alone. So he freaks out a bit, he wonders what's happening to him, and his nurse tells him to relax. That cycle goes on for quite a bit.
Eventually they get to the bottom of what's going on, which is that the spirits of his family can't rest until some arbitrary thing is done within some arbitrary length of time or bad things happen or something. So enter William Hurt, who is supposed to be this Ghostbuster/Zen Master/Surfer/Exorcist type guy who is Jeff's only hope. With his help, Jeff enters the Hellgate and faces the forces of darkness to put the souls of his family to rest.
William Hurt just found a hangnail. It's far more interesting than anything happening to Cary Elwes.
This all sounds intriguing, and perhaps in another movie with decent atmosphere, effective scares, and most importantly decent performances it could have had potential. But as it is "Hellgate" is simply too plodding, spending far too much of its run-time rehashing the same tired idea over and over again, too brightly lit and sterile looking to be atmospheric, too repetitive and lazy to be scary, and too disinterested in itself by having actors who look like they just don't care at all about what they're doing.
Cary Elwes isn't anywhere near his best here, but William Hurt was the worst offender in that category. He is capable of great acting, but here he just stands around looking bored, kind of sleepy and irritated to be there. Every word out of his mouth gives the impression that he's 2 seconds away from telling the director that there will be no more takes, that the last one he did was good enough, and to shove it if he doesn't like it. Clearly this was a paycheck for everyone involved, as nobody is really trying anyway, but Hurt is noticeably bad in "Hellgate." It's clear he does not give a single damn here. He just wanted a paycheck and a trip to Thailand.
"HEY! I said get the hell away from me with that camera! No, I don't care if we're still rolling. It's 5. I'm done. I'll be at the bar. If you try to come and get me, I will stab you in the balls."
And as spooky as the idea of creatures from Hell is, the second biggest fault of the movie after the acting comes from the pathetic attempt at being scary by showing us the same quick flashes of those said creatures over and over and over again until it's such a nonsensical mess of really bad makeup and lousy fake teeth that it eventually looses all meaning in context to anything. It's really amazing when a movie overplays its hand so much to so little effect that demons popping up to rip out your soul serves more to help you take note of how not to apply a prosthesis, rather than causing you any fright.
Oh no. A demon from Hell. This is SO different from the last 27 times I've seen this exact shot that the experience is completely new for me now. I'm so afraid I think I may have soiled myself.
And the pisser is that the demons popping up wasn't even well handled the first time we saw it. Let alone at the point were I'd seen it dozens of times. The pathetic attempts at horror here would be laughed off of the sets of Halloween themed kids films. The
Large Marge scene in "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" was scarier than this.
Maybe that's not fair. I don't think "Hellgate" is necessarily meant to be a horror film, though it was certainly marketed as one. The original title was "Shadows," which honestly fits much better, but the title and the marketing not being misleading would only make "Hellgate" better by technicality. It would still be boring even if it was honest with us.
Don't be fooled. It's nowhere near as interesting as the trailer. Nor as coherent.
THE BOTTOM LINE - "Hellgate" was absurdly close to making the prestigious list of "I hit the STOP button" films. In retrospect, I shouldn't have bothered muscling through to the end. It's a plodding, boring, poorly acted, confusing drama which tries to keep your attention by making lazy attempts at horror which is just about as scary as "Ernest Scared Stupid." Only that movie had better special effects.
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