Documentary

Hell House (2001)

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Director George Ratliff’s Hell House is a documentary that follows the parish of an Assembly of God church just outside of Austin, Texas, as it prepares for its 10th annual haunted house.

But the show they put on is not your average haunted house with Leatherface lookalikes and heads of cauliflower subbing for brains — the “Hell House” seeks to scare guests into fearing the Lord by depicting sinners at their worst: an AIDS patient rejecting Christ as he withers away on his deathbed; a girl about to commit suicide and blaming God after being roofied and raped at a rave; and a picked-upon student taking revenge on his classmates by killing them, as Satan has instructed.

In all cases, they are shown heading toward eternal damnation. The goal of the attraction is to have as many as of its tens of thousands of visitors converted to Christianity by the time they enter the final room.

At turns hilarious and sad, entertaining and disturbing, Hell House is a terrific, fly-on-the-wall look at this regional phenomenon, yet takes neither side. The characters may come off as sympathetic or zealots — that depends upon your own interpretation of their behavior. My favorite shot notes a pentagram the event volunteers have painted for a devil-worship scene, but mistakenly (?) made the Star of David instead. —Rod Lott

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Reading Material

Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made

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I can’t remember the first time I heard of the boys who made a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I do remember thinking, “Cute, but what’s the point? Perhaps there’s more to the story.”

Turns out, there is … but only technically. With writer Alan Eisenstock, the once-juvenile filmmakers Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala tell their seven-year tale of production in Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made. While certainly rife with details, it offers little in terms of meaty stuff that inquiring minds outta know.

For example, you’ll learn that Chris was a class clown, that Eric met him over the Marvel Comics adaptation, that Chris liked to lip-sync to Frank Zappa’s “Valley Girl,” that Eric’s home eventually was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and so on. You may think otherwise, but I don’t think they add up to a compelling behind-the-scenes story. That they made a movie in and of itself was not enough for me.

At the end of each chapter — and even sections within those chapters — Eisenstock tries his hardest to squeeze drama out of mundane situations, or create drama where there is none. Dialogue here in particular rings false, with lines carrying the same clichéd cinematic weight of “You ain’t seen nothing yet” or “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout!”

Telling it from the kids’ viewpoint is what sinks it. Overall, the book has the feel of being the literary equivalent of re-enactments on America’s Most Wanted. —Rod Lott

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Action

Hard Hunted (1992)

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Hard Hunted — emphasis on the Hard — never strays from writer/director Andy Sidaris’ formula that made all his previous entries so successful. After all, had Sidaris done otherwise, the series never would have made it past No. 2. This would have dealt a blow to mankind.

A slimy, foreign rich guy who lives on a boat is trying to get back this glowing green paperweight-type thing that was stolen from him. Trying to stop him are spies played by former Playboy centerfolds Dona Spier, Roberta Vasquez and Cynthia Brimhall, and for some dumb reason, a couple of guys, too.

They communicate with one another via not-so-thinly-veiled messages on the local radio station, Hawaii’s KSXY, manned by a melon-heavy DJ (Ava Cadell) who likes to do her show from the comfortable confines of the hot tub. We wholeheartedly support this decision.

The gals are pursued by a Japanese guy in a stealth helicopter, Dona falls from a chopper and gets amnesia (in a subplot that brilliantly predates Christopher Nolan’s Memento — nah, just kidding), Brimhall sings three whole terrible songs, comic relief is supplied by two guys named “Wiley” and “Coyote,” and Tony Peck (son of Gregory) gets laid. As with the entire Sidaris oeuvre, Hard Hunted comes highly recommended to heterosexual males who subscribe to the theory of “the bigger, the better.” —Rod Lott

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Horror

Graduation Day (1981)

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A slasher film set at a high school, Graduation Day is remembered most for its appearance of Vanna White, merely a couple of years away from achieving immense fame turning letters on TV’s Wheel of Fortune. Directed by Herb Freed (Beyond Evil), Graduation Day is so utterly forgettable that although I’ve seen it probably three times in my life, I never can recall who the killer is. Then again, the experience is so passive, why pay it mind?

The movie begins with a montage of parallel bars and other athletic pursuits set to an inspirational disco track that concludes with a senior track star’s death at the finish line by a loosed blood clot. Her Navy-enlisted sister (Patch Mackenzie, It’s Alive III) comes home from being stationed in Guam to attend the funeral and graduation ceremony, and almost immediately, other members of the track and field team are murdered one by one by a killer wielding a fencing sword. He/she wears the requisite black gloves, but utilizing a stopwatch while stalking his/her victims has to be a slasher first.

Each unfortunate senior is marked off a group photo with lipstick, after being, say, stabbed through the throat in the locker room or pole-vaulting onto a bed of spikes, because that can happen. A second before one guy loses his head, his make-out partner says, “It must be nice to be a boy, piss anywhere you want to.” The body count is surprisingly low; the pacing, predictably slow.

At least Vanna plays a bitch who pees her pants in fright. Another famous face/figure in an early role is scream queen Linnea Quigley (The Return of the Living Dead), who sheds her shirt in an attempt to seduce her Marvin Hamlisch-esque music teacher into raising her grade, yet even that fails to raise a viewer’s pulse. Freed’s ineptness is reflected in day-for-night shots, strobe effects, and allowing both coach Christopher George (Pieces) and principal Michael Pataki (Dracula’s Dog) to emote through squints and grunts. —Rod Lott

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