Review: Hellhole

After killing her mother, Judy Landers manages to get away from scarf-wearing psycho killer Silk (Ray Sharkey). Landers did take a great fall however, injuring her brain. Now an amnesiac, she ends up in a psychiatric facility run by evil Dr. Fletcher (Mary Woronov) and her spineless cohort (Marjoe Gortner). Dr. Fletcher tortures patients with lobotomising experiments in the underbelly of the hospital. Meanwhile, Landers starts to remember things from that awful night when she spots a creepy orderly who looks an awful gosh darn like Silk! Edy Williams plays a nympho, Richard Cox plays a good doctor, and Robert Z’Dar plays a brutal nightstick-brandishing hospital guard.

 

I don’t bust out the ‘No Rating’ very often. In fact, I’ve only done it a couple of times. It’s basically my go-to when I simply have no idea what to make of a film from a grading standpoint. “Let Me In” received it, despite not being an objectively terrible film – just a pointless and unnecessary remake of a film I didn’t much care for to begin with. Well, now this 1985 exploitation film from director Pierre De Moro (third and last of his directorial efforts and the only one that wasn’t a family movie) and screenwriter Aaron Butler (the infamous “Chained Heat”) gets the dreaded ‘No Rating’ as well. It’s clearly a much worse film than “Let Me In”, but was it also designed to be bad? I’m pretty sure this is basically the film that the filmmakers intended on making. Can I really dislike a film that I still found somewhat watchable? This is quite clearly no-good trash, but if it’s designed that way and I still found it a pretty easy watch…Oh dear, you see my predicament don’t you? Hence I’m copping out, make up your own grade if you like. I’m just going to talk about the film itself.

 

Despite what you might’ve read, this actually isn’t a women-in-prison film, it’s set in a psychiatric hospital. Make no mistake though, it’s basically the “Chained Heat” of psychiatric hospital movies, with a touch of the campy “Reform School Girls” about it, and even a dollop of slasher movie. And boy do we have a great campy cast for it. Our lead is the pneumatic Judy Landers, a veteran of television who convinces OK enough as a doe-eyed innocent. Our main antagonists are long-time B-movie and exploitation movie villainess Mary Woronov, and the late Ray Sharkey from “The Idolmaker” and TV’s “Wiseguy”. As the resident sexpot we’ve got Russ Meyer favourite Edy Williams. For the brutal head guard we have the debut performance of the human Buzz Lightyear, 6-foot goon specialist Robert Z’Dar (credited as Robert Darcy). That’s one heck of a motley crew we’re treated too here, and I haven’t even mentioned former child evangelist Marjoe Gortner as Woronov’s weak-willed enabler/accomplice. But holy shit, let’s start with the late Mr. Sharkey because…oh, boy, he’s something to talk about. When we first meet him, he’s stalking some woman (who is Ms. Landers’ character’s mother) and dressed like Super Mario dressed as leather-loving Judas Priest front man Rob Halford. It’s a hell of a sight. As bad as Ms. Borden’s turn is, Sharkey’s coked-up performance here is a truly bizarre, scenery-chewing turn that whatever you make of it, sure ain’t boring. After his weirdo leather man introduction, n the next scene Sharkey’s sporting a fake afro for crying out loud. The actor clearly isn’t taking anything seriously here, and whilst a little too self-indulgent for my taste, at least Sharkey is memorable.

 

The depiction of the sanitarium is certainly hilariously unrealistic – populated almost exclusively by hot chicks who are out of control and seemingly very poorly supervised. However, I don’t think the film is an intentional spoof so much as an exploitation film pitched at camp level, which isn’t quite the same thing. The problem with that is that some of the cast (principally Mary Woronov, Robert Z’Dar, and Edy Williams) are more effective on this level than others (boring good guy Richard Cox, stiff non-actor Marjoe Gortner). So it doesn’t even really work as camp or a tongue-in-cheek slasher/exploitation film, either. Yet it’s clearly pitched a whole lot sillier than most films of this type, so it’s not a serious endeavour either. Meanwhile, we don’t get any sex or nudity until after the 20 minute mark, which is far too late if one is viewing this as an exploitation film. So it’s a bust there too, no pun intended. Not to mention that lead actress Landers doesn’t even show off the goods in the requisite shower scenes. It’s left up to Edy Williams for that, and while she’s always good trash value and clearly hot, she’s also off-screen for long stretches of the film. That’s a shame because although Williams is no actress, she’s rarely called upon for that kind of thing anyway. She’s just here to do Edy Williams things and show off her amazing rack. She does that nicely, just not often enough. Hell, even then she’s wearing panties in the shower and for the subsequent cat fight. What the hell is up with that? I know Russ Meyer was a breast man, but it’s a bit weird to see someone wearing underwear in the shower in an exploitation film. Thankfully the extras at least go fully nude and the catfight is admittedly good trashy fun. Unfortunately almost all of the fun is in the film’s first half. There’s a couple of fun bits when Woronov and Williams are around, but the rest doesn’t have nearly as much exploitation/camp value as you’d like. Someone also really needed to inform Mr. Cox that he wasn’t doing an Arthur Miller play for fuck’s sake. You really know you’re not enjoying an exploitation film when the thing you enjoy most about the film is the cinematography/lighting. However I will say that there might’ve been a decent, creepy slasher film to be made somewhere in here, especially with Robert Z’Dar’s hulking guard stalking women. A few tweaks to make it legit scary and that might’ve been a workable idea instead of this weird but unsatisfying attempt at exploitation camp that won’t likely please anyone.

 

Exploitation favourites Mary Woronov and Edy Williams give this silly exploitation film a bit of the right stuff, the former even getting a few amusing lines. It’s clearly a bad film and that’s what you’ve likely come for, it’s certainly why I watched it. However, it’s never quite as much fun as it should be even on that level, and our romantic leading man is a dullard. So it doesn’t quite work as a bad film or camp classic, though there sure is a lot of stuff going on in just 90 minutes. Make up your own grade, I’m not sure what I made of this one from a grading perspective. Mr. Butler’s original screenplay was augmented for story and additional dialogue by Lance Dickson (who seems to have worked on films in almost every capacity) and Mark Evan Schwartz (“Stranglehold” for Cirio H. Santiago), none of whom do an efficient enough job of explaining how Sharkey ended up working at the hospital (nor a couple of other characters whose identities I shall not spoil).

 

Rating: No Rating