Everyone loves a good scare, and if you love 80’s slasher films—this one’s for you! Now before getting into the full-blown review, I have to say that the concept for this film is very intriguing. Deranged serial killers having their little spree on Halloween is already terrifying enough, but add on that this is occurring in a Halloween horror carnival—things get scary real fast!
Hell Fest is directed by Gregory Plotkin and was released in 2018. The film follows six friends as they venture on Halloween night to the traveling horror themed carnival named Hell Fest. This carnival is full of mazes, scare zones, rides, games, and even a separate section called the Dead Lands— where scarers can actually touch the guests. However, all the fun screams soon begin to twist as a masked serial killer comes in to make the horror into reality.
Going into watching this movie, I was extremely interested in the concept. I am not sure about you but I love, and I mean LOVE Halloween. From the spooky atmosphere to all the fun Halloween events that pop-up, Halloween is definitely my favorite time of the year. I genuinely look forward to going to Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights, which is why the idea of an actual real killer lurking within the scare grounds is absolutely petrifying. So when I saw this film was newly added onto Netflix, I was eager to give it a go!
As soon as the movie starts, it does not take long for the action to begin rolling. The opening scene is literally the masked killer murdering a poor young woman in one of the mazes a couple years prior to the group of friends going to Hell Fest. Excluding the introduction of the main characters and the ending scene, the whole movie takes place within the horror-themed park. The park was accurately portrayed, and the mazes looked as if they were pulled straight from Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights or Knott’s Scary Farm. Real enough to feel as if you were walking with the characters through the chaotic, dark lit labyrinth of horror.
Another aspect of the film that really brought that retro slasher element to the table—aside from a killer murdering with various sharp objects—was the inclusion of classic slasher tropes. Tropes such as: a group of young adults, breaking off from the larger group, unresponsive authorities, and to top it off a killer in a mask! Tropes we have all seen before, but hey this is a slasher film! It is supposed to have these tropes, that is what makes it what it is! Some of the tropes included, especially at the end, even had unexpected twists which was pleasantly surprising. What really brought the terror was that all of these kills were happening within this horror-themed carnival park—where a real body can easily be passed off as a prop.
In the end, Hell Fest is a fun, thrilling slasher film that provides an enjoyable escape from reality—which is a big help in our current lockdown lifestyle.
The Beat @APU 