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Hell Fest

6/10

Stars: Amy Forsyth, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Reign Edwards, Stephen Conroy, Matt Mercurio, Christian James, Tony Todd

Director: Gregory Plotkin

What better setting for a slasher movie than a carnival of creeps, featuring grottoes of ghouls? Figures from the world of horror jump out at every misstep to make the unwary customers jump out of their skins - and every ride is a scary one.

Six teens go to enjoy a night out at this forbidding fair, but one girl (Forsyth) in particular catches the eye of a masked stalker who has come not to thrill but to kill.

The rest of the furiously-paced gorefest keeps our heroine a perilous one pace ahead of the Ripper, while her friends go to Hell one by one.

With four down and two to go, the survivors flee, not out of the park, or into the arms of now-alerted police, but straight into the nearest 'Hell house'. ...It's a slasher movie, for goodness sake - what did you expect: logic? A decently-made one, too, with a stand-out scene in which two of the girls try to negotiate a passageway in which arms reach out of the walls, clutching at them. Derivative, of course, but effective nonetheless,

Acting from the girls is a little better than a virtually non-existent screenplay deserves - it took three people to write this? - and the skull-infested settings fulfil an art director's and production designer's dream. Hell Fest 2 surely awaits around the next red-lit corner.

David Quinlan

USA 2018. UK Distributor: LionsGate. Colour (unspecified).
90 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 18.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 0, Swearing 2.

Review date: 12 Nov 2018