20140220: Horror Review--Exit to Hell

Exit to Hell

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated R, 81 minutes, horror, slasher.
2. IMDB: 3.6/10.0 from 141 audience ratings. 
3. Rotten Tomatoes: no responses as of 20140220.
4. Netflix: 2.3/5.0 from 3,643 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Robert Conway.
6. Starring: Kane Hodder as Sickle, Rena Riffel as Penny, Dan Higgins as Mordin, Dustin Leighton as Travis, Tiffany Shepis as Jenna, Taryn Dafoe as Tasha, Owen Conway as Randy, Jason Spisak as Yakov.


2. Setup and Plot
1. There's a drug meet in the desert that goes bad.  The surviving pair of criminals run from the cops successfully, but soon find their ends in Redstone, somewhere in Arizona.  The sheriff of Redstone is called Sickle for his weapon of choice.


2. We shift to a bar with strippers in some other town.  The DJ holds up the safe.  One of the bouncers attacks a customer, who kills the bouncer.  The strippers and the bartender start killing people.  They take off together: Travis, Randy, Jenna, and Tasha.


3. Apparently this is their MO: get jobs at a strip club, then hold up the place.  Yakov, who owns this strip club, does not like it. 


4. The thieves drive all night, in the wrong direction since the coke head Randy was driving.  They end up in Redstone.  What could possibly go wrong?


5. The drug addict is more than noticed by the Sheriff.  They run for it, but the Sheriff rams them and captures Tasha.  Yakov gets Travis' location via Penny, but Sickle kills Travis first.


6. Will Jenna or Randy survive Yakov and Sickle?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Bad screenplay, acting, cinematography; gratuitous skin and cannibalism jokes.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 1/10 VHS quality or worse; bad editing all around.  Cheap jack coloured lights and filters.


2. Sound: 2/10 Terrible incidental music, especially the nonsense coming from that ancient AM radio played extra loud.


3. Acting: 2/10 So much of the acting was not even amateurish.  The +2 is for Kane Hodder and Dan Higgins.


4. Screenplay: 3/10 Yakov kills his accountant inside a paramedics van.  The accountant flatlines right there; the paramedic (ten feet away) does not notice this?  The cops are there; the paramedics don't call them?  The film did have a beginning, middle, and end, of sorts.  It's just that all of them were written and executed badly.