Timothy Glaraton
What might it look like if John Carpenter’s Halloween had been made and set in the modern era? This simple question is one that a 2018 slasher I’m particularly fond of sets out to answer, pairing the lean, mean, intense feel of the classic slashers with a modern, spectacular setting that’s the stuff of any haunted attraction enthusiast’s dreams. Welcome to Slasher Saturdays, this week we’ll being exploring what might just be my favorite slasher film of all time: 2018’s Hell Fest.
Setting: Hell Fest’s setting—and particularly its set design—plays a big role in putting the film over the top. Apart from maybe fifteen minutes total at the beginning and the end, the entire film is set in the titular Hell Fest, a fully realized, Disneyland-sized haunt attraction. It makes the attraction in Haunt look like a kiddie ride by comparison. There’s a sense of unreality from the moment we arrive at the fest, allowing our killer to hide in more or less plain sight, and as a haunted attraction fiend, I fully admit to a little bit of jealousy on my part that the fest isn’t a real place that I’m able to visit. From the massive mazes to the ghost train, the often jaw-dropping set design (partially filmed at Six Flags White Water) brings what might be the world’s most spectacular haunted attraction to life.
Victims: True to Hell Fest’s ‘70s/’80s slasher roots, Hell Fest’s gang of doomed teenagers is about as tropey as they come. There’s good girl/final girl Natalie, best friend Brooke, love interest Gavin, troublemaker/flirty girl Taylor and her boyfriend Asher, and other one Quinn. From the moment we meet them we have a pretty good sense of who lives, who dies, and in what order they each meet their demise. There’s nothing revolutionary here, nor are they particularly deep characters, but that’s not what Hell Fest is setting out to do and they’re all likable enough that you can empathize with them and entertaining enough when they die.
Final girl Natalie in particular has a lot to juggle: the reappearance of crush Gavin, reconnecting with Brooke and trying to warm up to Taylor—and that’s before she finds herself the object of fascination of a psychotic killer. Amy Forsyth is given a lot of responsibility as the anchor for most of the show’s relationships, and thankfully she’s more than up to the job.
Killer: The Other, as Hell Fest’s killer is known, is…certainly inspired by the OG slasher icon, Halloween’s Michael Myers—or The Shape, as he’s usually referred to. From the similar names to the workman aesthetic to the not-quite-human masks they both wear, to their lack of any discernable motive to kill paired with an intense focus on one person, The Other is a case where inspiration runs very, very, very close to being a straight rip off of another character. But what sets The Other apart and makes him feel even more dangerous is a sense of what can only be described as experience and what almost feels like genre awareness.
For about 95% of its runtime, Hell Fest plays it completely straight as a ‘70s/’80s styled slasher and its killer is no different, but there are several key moments where the film takes our knowledge and expectations of the genre and uses them against us to frightening effect, while also dismantling the very idea of a horror villain having an iconic appearance or mask. Take, for instance, the sequence in the ghost train that guests have to ride to reach the inner, more intense mazes. Having been waiting for Gavin to arrive from his ill-fated quest to get her a plush toy, Natalie winds up riding the ghost train alone after the rest of her friends have gone through it. Naturally, The Other shows up and climbs atop her car to terrorize her, and as we cut away to her friends outside listening to her screams there’s an almost deja vu-like sense that sets in.
It’s a scene we’ve seen a million different variations on: the car will come out, The Other will be gone, and everyone will think she’s crazy while The Other continues to menace her unseen. But when her car comes out of the tunnel, The Other is still onboard for all to see. Then, three other people dressed identically to The Other appear while the unmistakable voice of Tony Todd’s barker announces their arrival to the Deadlands section of the park and that “The Other will guide you on your journey, ” leading everyone save Natalie to simply believe it to be part of the show.
A slasher villain having a distinctive, iconic outfit and mask is one of the unspoken rules of the genre—it’s nearly impossible to think of a slasher icon like Ghostface or Freddy or Jason without their iconic getups. But this is the trope that Hell Fest chooses to dismantle to excellent effect. Of course a cold, calculating killer wouldn’t pick out a costume that would stand out, and his chosen disguise allows him to escape at a key moment: after Taylor and Asher are killed in the middle of a large crowd, The Other is seemingly tackled and unmasked by park security—but then we look down and see he’s wearing a pair of red sneakers, not the distinctive work boots that The Other has been wearing the whole time. Even more sinister is the film’s ending, where we not only see The Other return to his suburban home and daughter, but put his mask away in a cabinet with a series of other masks from years past. As much as we might love the distinctive look of a particular slasher villain, The Other and Hell Fest alike recognize that it’s probably not a good idea to be wearing a distinctive costume if the villain needs to make a quick escape.
Kills: Kills come few and far between in Hell Fest, favoring slow-burning tension over fast and furious violence. But when The Other does get his hands dirty, the kills that do happen are both creative and vicious. One victim is slowly bludgeoned to death with an oversized carnival mallet, another one barely escapes a guillotine only to get sliced up in a crowd of people, but the worst one is hands down the needle-in-the-eye kill about halfway through the film. We get an agonizingly long shot of the victim trying to hold off the needle slowly getting pushed toward his eye, and when it finally connects it’s with a nauseating squish. Eyes (and particularly things getting stabbed through them) have always been a source of particular discomfort for me, and this kill is one that made me almost have to stop the film and skip over it.
Verdict: If you hadn’t already guessed it by now, I have nothing but the highest praise for Hell Fest. My love of this particular slasher was evident upon first viewing and has only grown with each subsequent viewing. Hell Fest gets a hearty ten out of ten from me, and hopefully someday we can get a proper sequel—but in the meantime, the film is available to watch for free on Tubi.
