I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

OUR FIRST CONTENDER FOR THE YEAR FOR WORST MOVIE EVER - AND IT'S ONLY JANUARY...








Hellgate aka A Porta Do Inferno (1989) US/South Africa

You remember what I said about wanting to be able to unsee certain movies? This one just went to the top of the list. We have an incredibly cheap and horribly made movie starring the late Ron Palillo (Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter) starring as the oldest college student ever. When this movie was made, he was 40. That's probably a record, I dunno. I do know this could hold the record for worst makeup, worst special effects, worst story, worst acting, worst attempt to recreate items from yesteryear... yeah, this sucked so loud my ears rang by the time the thing ended. When you have to go clear to South Africa to make a movie - don't.

Why did I even attempt it? From those famous but often misleading claims on the movie poster. This was supposed to be made by some of the same people who made Hellraiser. Now when they make this kind of claim, you have to wonder - do they mean the people responsible for the effects and storyline or the people who stood around running errands and making coffee? If I had to guess, it would definitely be the latter.

The non-story: In the 50's a motorcycle gang called the Strangers (This 'gang' was four guys on three bikes, supposedly 50's Harleys but they were neither from the 50's nor were they Harleys. They sounded like weak Hondas - still not from the 50's.) kidnap a girl for fun and... more fun I guess. The premise is they murder her, but actually it's her dad's fault - he throws an axe into one of the biker's heads and since he's still on a running bike, it hits the girl and plows through a brick wall - made, I'm sure, of nothing but plastic the way it blew right through it. One biker survives and for some reason the father doesn't go after him. Yeah, that would happen. 



Years later one of the father's employees finds a crystal which is supposedly the great zombie crystal of.... I dunno, Convenientville? He of course raises up his daughter who now just wants to seduce strangers and then kill them - adding to the zombie population I guess. He certainly doesn't seem to mind when she's undressed in front of him. Just her being nude around her dad was sufficiently creepy.



Sigh, this is so awful I can't even make you listen to the whole story. Needless to say, having Ron as a lead, romantic, heroic or otherwise is NOT going to work. The makeup is awful, the effects were just an overuse of wax and bad gore, having these four 'college students' insist on solving this mystery like they typical Scooby Doo type of group for no reason whatsoever... It just keeps getting worse and worse.

How does it end? Ron and his probably equally old girlfriend are the only survivors and somehow get out of the town of horrid zombies (Horrid 'cause they look awful, not 'cause they're zombies.) without getting blown up by the crystal (oh yeah, it does whatever they think of at the spur of the moment). And I've just lost another 91 minutes of my life. Lesson? Don't watch zombie movies starring Horseshack. Nothing good can come of it.