Simply A Masterpiece

hyped garbage

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I decided to watch this movie solely because it had Katharine Isabelle in it. And it turned out that the movie was every bit as bad as I had expected it to be!The storyline was straight forward, albeit generic and actually somewhat odd, as most of the things going on made little sense. You don't connect with any of the characters in the movie, as they are emotionless one-dimensional puppets milling around at the whim of director Penelope Buitenhuis.Miguel Ferrer did a fairly adequate job with his role, despite having next to nothing to work with. As for Katharine Isabelle, not that outstanding in this movie.The special effects in the movie were fairly alright, although you shouldn't hold your breath for anything spectacular.All in all, then "Hard Ride to Hell" is not really worth the effort, as there are far better horror movies available to pick from.

Riders of the Apocalypse, Desolatores, are Satan's followers, immortal, only needing to consume human flesh to attain their status with the dark lord, have been trying to find a woman to plant a seed so that the end of days can commence as a child is conceived. Miguel Ferrer is their leader, Jefé, once a Castilian priest, he found a temple of worship dedicated to the devil and discovered the means to eternal life. With others joining his side, Jefé may've found the woman he's been searching many years for, to bring darkness into the world, Tessa(Laura Mennell), traveling with her husband, Danny(Brendan Penny), Danny's brother(Sebastian Gacki), and their friends, Kerry(Katherine Isabelle)and Dirk(Brandon Jay McLaren). Terror will befall these twenty-somethings as Jefé and his evil companions prepare for the birth, having fun with these mere mortals in the process. They will get some help in a traveling knife salesman, Bob(Brent Strait). Bob equips himself quite well with his seemingly endless supply of knives, and even drives Danny's RV while trying to evade Jefé's biker gang, following close behind, eventually catching up to them. There will be a showdown in an abandoned Texas town's church, the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Tessa resists Jefé, at first, as he demands she carry his seed in exchange for her husband's life. Impregnated and carrying to term fairly quickly, Tessa's giving birth is a no-no, but Jefé will do whatever it takes to see that she does exactly that.The plot is so ludicrous that I think one has to shut their brain off and just watch HARD RIDE TO HELL for entertainment purposes only. It's loaded with sadistic ultra-violence because Ferrer and his men are so completely evil and cause such bloody destruction to the cast, including flesh-eating. Poor McLaren loses his arm, and is yanked from a speeding RV to the road by a hook while Isabelle's Kerry spends most of the running time in hysterics. Stait's Bob is a hoot, slicing and dicing a steady stream of devil-worshiping bikers throughout the movie. Ferrer seems to be at home playing vile, unsavory sorts and his Jefé is no different. Jason Logan is Tito, the priest at the end, with a powerful Mayan medallion his father left him upon death, who tries to assist Bob, Danny and company against Jefé and his goons. Lots of arterial spray, including one scene where Bob goes berserk with a chainsaw. Isabelle is a riot(maybe unintentionally)as the frightened-out-of-her-mind Kerry, not much help to Bob who tries to get her to help him out. Bob seems to be the only character able to do anything of merit against the villains of HARD RIDE TO HELL.

Flyers and adds in popular US and UK horror magazines promoted this flick as an ode to the popular demand for exploitation flicks. I was entertained but didn't really thought it was an exploitation. There are films out now that really are old school exploitation but hadn't got the promo like this one. Oh yes, everything is in it. The red stuff flows but mostly after the killings are done, off camera. It never really is gory except maybe one scene, there are indeed bikers in it like we used to see in exploitation (Werewolfs On Wheels for example).and there is of course nudity but not as much as stated, only one scene has T&A but never full frontal. You see, everything is there but somehow it didn't work as it should be for me. I was never frightened and sometimes even a bit bored. And the possessed woman couldn't convince me too. A pity, in this time of independent exploitations that this one fails. It was indeed a hard ride but not to hell.

Sometimes IMDb baffles me. I fully expected this movie to at least be in the high 4s or low 5s. But it's currently at 3.3? Geez...it's not awful. Sure, it's got it's problems, but I can think of at least a dozen movie that have come out in theaters within the last 6 months that I'd pass over for this one.As I said, the movie has problems. First of all, it's trying a little too hard to be the sort of terrorizing biker gang grindhouse kind of movie that it wants to be. It totally lacks the gritty feel of those movies. Plus the plot as a whole is a bit lame. Not bad, but it kind of feels stale. I understand the satanic biker angle, but making them some sort of immortals practicing black magic seems a bit much. Then the final 20 minutes or so feels more Dusk Til Dawn more than anything, so it's kind of all over the place. It's got a fair amount of splatter for the horror fans, but far less (I don't remember any) nudity than you'd expect from this type of movie.All in all I think a 5 is a fair rating. It's got problems, but it's not total crap. Just watch it for what it is...a mid-budget throwback wanna-be