A couple years ago, you may remember, I was kind of giving up on my Slasher Search tradition, because the pickings were getting really slim when it came to the type of undiscovered ‘80s slasher I was looking for. Some of you talked me into broadening or adjusting the criteria, so I’ve been experimenting with the mostly more modern horror obscurities that can be found scrolling through the horror sections on Tubi and similar free streaming services. That’s been going okay so far, so I’ll try dipping in a little again this year and see what happens.
For today’s special programming I tried out two movies that stretch the definition of “slasher,” but they seem at least tangentially related to supernatural slashers like Freddy and Candyman. Or at least one of them has Tony Todd in it. Okay, these are not really slashers, they’re action horror. Instead of a final girl running from a killer they have a martial artist who falls into monster troubles and has to fight.
HELLKAT (2021) stars Sarah T. Cohen (EASTER BUNNY MASSACRE) as Katrina “HellKat” Bash, a former champion fighter who, after a career ending loss, goes on a road trip, gets stranded, finds herself at a mysterious bar with an unholy secret. I was a little worried when Katrina’s “fall from grace” in the ring was depicted with voiceover only, no fighting seen. No ring. Then some pretty rough green screen driving and cg smoke. But that’s okay. That’s what we’re dealing with. Cohen at least has a good tough girl presence to go with her neck tattoos, chainsmoking, fishnets and Doc Martens.
Anyway right before she self-defense-shoots a weirdo (Ryan Davies, 2 episodes of Da Vinci’s Demons) who picked her up hitchhiking he turns into a demon and laughs it off, and later she finds a scar on her neck like her throat was slit, so something’s up. She goes to a bar (not too hip, except for the purple lights) and she gave all her money to a homeless guy but the bartender (Adrian Bouchet, ALIEN VS. PREDATOR) lets her clean up puke and piss in trade for bottomless tequila, two packs of cigarettes and a shed to sleep/cry in.
There are some bullying Movie Biker types who hang out at the bar and tell her “you can’t drink yourself to death when you’re already dead.” Oh, I get it now. One of them is named Viper (AJ Blackwell, TOOTHFAIRY 2), he spinkicks a guy so the bartender shoots him in the head and tells him to hit the road. Also Katrina notices other weird shit: a mysterious glowing basement door, two moons in the sky, and the guy she shot earlier coming in covered in blood, pulling an eyeball out of his shirt pocket and eating it. He taunts her about abandoning her son – it turns out she killed herself and left a cigarette that caused a deadly hotel fire – and forces her to fight in an underground tournament in Hell to save her soul. She has quick fights against dudes with zombie and werewolf faces and shit.
A doctor (Clive Coen, “Wizard [uncredited], FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM) in an S&M version of a plague mask fixes her wounds with a welding torch and a drill. She waits around watching the other fights on an analog TV in a back room with the other condemned souls. There’s a guy named Freddy Fishbones (Ricardo Freitas, CONJURING THE PLASTIC SURGEON 2), I’m not sure why. Grizz (Serhat Metin, THE MARINE 6: CLOSE QUARTERS) uses a hanging corpse as a punching bag but seems nice and supportive to Salt (Abi Casson Thompson, CURSE OF BLOODY MARY), who loses her shit and rants about not having a chance in her fight against a “giant mother-netherfuck.”
I think this is a pretty cool idea, and Cohen is compelling enough as Katrina that I was able to roll with various inadequacies during the first half. Unfortunately for a movie like this to work for me the fights really have to deliver, and that’s not the case. Honestly I can forgive the choreography being pretty basic (you still get to see a guy in Nosferatu-type makeup do flying kicks) but a fight tournament needs a good location (preferably more than one), plus some building drama between some of the contestants, leading to a final match that you’re invested in. This is just repetitive individual fights against nameless, character-less monster masks, in a visually uninspiring venue. Hell apparently can’t afford a professional ring or audience, so all the fights are just in a ring in a dark gym with ropes nobody ever bounces off of. So even though it comes in under 80 minutes I was pretty much out by the end.
As you can probly tell by the actor credits, HELLKAT comes out of today’s genuine exploitation market, the sausage factory of straight-to-streaming cheapies I never hear of people watching but know of from slasher searching or browsing for shitty Krampus movies in the winter. The directors are very prolific, the casts overlap, the high concept titles make you chuckle more than actually want to watch. HELLKAT’s directors are Scott Chambers (CLOWNDOLL, THE CURSE OF HUMPTY DUMPTY, EXORCIST VENGEANCE) and Becca Hirani (PET GRAVEYARD, CANNIBAL TROLL, THE GARDENER), screenplay by Michele Pacitto (THE JURASSIC DEAD) and Jordan Rockwell.
I didn’t love this one but I can say it’s above average for random things I find on Tubi, and I can at least respect that they came up with a self contained action premise instead of mockbustering or leeching off of a nursery rhyme.
I had much better luck with SHADOW: DEAD RIOT (2006), a leftover from the DTV era, and passion project of people at the DVD label Media Blasters. I was actually aware of this one just because I’d noticed the score was by Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid, but I wasn’t clear what the movie was about or what the title even meant. If you’re wondering, it turns out Shadow is a guy and Dead Riot is a zombie outbreak in a prison.
This one is pretty cheesy at times but with lots of enjoyably crazy ideas and the good taste to do them all with a straight face. The title character is a serial killer occultist played by Tony Todd between the Tom Hardy movie MINOTAUR and HATCHET. In the prologue he has sharpened teeth, he carves symbols in his flesh and the floor of his cell while rambling about “the alpha and the omega” and shit. His execution goes supernaturally wrong, a riot ensues, the guards shoot everybody and bury them in the yard. Though there are obvious budgetary short cuts taken, there are also quite a few prisoners, some squibs, and a great exploding head effect. Ambitious for its budget. So whatever this is gonna be, it’s not bottom of the barrel. We are floating up in the barrel already.
After the opening credits it’s 20 years later and the prison has been re-opened as Ellis Glen Experimental Rehabilitation Facility For Women. This is definitely a tribute to the women-in-prison genre (complete with gratuitously long shower scenes) but one humorously off-formula touch is that Warden Danvers (Nina Hodoruk, 2 episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street but playing different characters) is not some cruel bitch, she’s actually well-meaning and sincere about trying to run a healthy, progressive prison. But the place is still a shithole, and she’s undermined by sexually harassing head guard Elsa Thorne (Andrea Langi, THE WRESTLER) and unethically-experimenting-on-prisoners Dr. Swann (Michael Quinlan, “Passenger #2,” THE HAPPENING).
Our protagonist is a fresh meat convict who calls herself Solitaire (Carla Greene, uncredited character in INSIDE MAN) “‘cause I don’t play well with others.” But she has a friendly enough cell mate Emily, mostly known as Preggers (Cat Miller) on account of her current state. And there’s a decent collection of less developed colorful bad girls with names like Meth (Anna Curtis, “Pedestrian,” Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas), Rage (Ruby Larocca, THE LOST), and Hotrod (Danielle Riley, NECROLAND).
Solitaire ignores harassment by Mondo (bodybuilder Tatianna Butler) until forced to stand up for her meek space case victim Crystal (Erin Brown, a.k.a. softcore icon Misty Mundae, Masters of Horror: Sick Girl). The fight gets Solitaire sent to solitary, where Shadow’s occult carvings give her visions of his crimes. Meanwhile, Crystal faces a related horror threat when she makes a run for it across the yard while wounded and gets pulled into the dirt to supply blood to Shadow. Later Preggers’ water breaks early, nobody will help, so Solitaire proves her badass heroism by kicking her cell door off and trying to carry her out. She ends up giving birth on the grass and a zombie arm reaches up and yanks the umbilical cord.
Mother and child somehow survive, but the baby gets mad scienced into a zombie creature, portrayed through the medium of goofy puppet and one animated crawling shot. Shadow is resurrected, slits his wrists to spray all over the grass and bring back the other prisoners (including a cameo-ing Bill Hinzman, the iconic cemetery zombie from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD) as zombies. In the last half hour secrets are revealed, Solitaire has experimental super-strength, and she leads the surviving prisoners and staff in battling their way out of the prison.
Many necks spray blood, heads get ripped off, ghouls get kicked, elbowed and shot, Solitaire gets a promised rematch against Mondo, but now Mondo is a zombie (and Solitaire pulls her head off). Crystal also returns in zombie form and munches faces. And the climactic Solitaire vs. Shadow fight is pretty good, lots of super punches, levitation, fun stuff.
I’m glad I waited forever to see this because I think I enjoyed it now more than I would’ve then. I hold an old movie I’ve never heard anyone talk about to different standards than a brand new one I’m hoping will be great. And some things improve with age, like there are a handful of c.g. shots that would’ve seemed shitty at the time but now seem adorable. The main thing I was curious about (Reid’s score) doesn’t amount to much, but the straight-faced mash up of trash genres is inspired – credit due to the screenplay by Michael Gingold (longtime Fangoria writer) and Richard Siegel (cartoonist and Weekly World News writer).
The movie also has a really invested lead and plenty of tawdry payoffs to balance out any clunkiness. The primary factor to maintain my interest during lulls is that any time a fight breaks out it’s pretty great – energetic, varied, lots of high kicks, very old-school-kung-fu-movie inspired, and that’s no coincidence. Director Derek Wan usually worked as a cinematographer, where his credits include ROYAL WARRIORS, ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA V and FIST OF LEGEND. Then he came west to shoot SUPERFIGHTS and BLOODMOON. Just as important, he has action choreographer and second unit director Tony Leung Siu Hung (TWIN DRAGONS, SATIN STEEL, IP MAN, played “Master Lee” in IP MAN 3). Together they get alot of bang for their buck within the confines of low budget American indie horror.
Interestingly it was filmed in the decommissioned Holmesburg Prison in Holmesburg, Pennsylvania, where for decades actual mad scientists tested medicine and biochemical weapons on prisoners, among other fucked up shit, eventually leading to many lawsuits and changes in laws about medical experiments and informed consent. Maybe the filmmakers should’ve claimed this was based on a true story. Other movies that filmed there include ANIMAL FACTORY, FALLEN and LAW ABIDING CITIZEN.
October 10th, 2024 at 5:58 pm
Like a marine biologist at the Mariana Trench or an astronaut penetrating the deeper recesses of space, you have ventured to a strange and forbidding world, hostile to human life. I’m glad at least the second one was fun (takes eyeball from pocket and casually gnoshes).
I would love your take on the TERROR TRAIN remake duology. It does not sound as unhinged or interesting in premise as either of these, but it qualifies as a pair of slasher films.