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| All Images Courtesy Visual Vengeance |
Visual Vengeance is at it again, giving a lavish, feature-stacked special edition to a couple deeply obscure works of DIY trash cinema from the straight-to-video days. This time, it’s a pair of Texas-produced low-budget features, made by the duo of Bret McCormick (The Abomination) and Gary Kennamer. The headlining feature is Highway to Hell (1990 – not to be confused with the 1991 horror/comedy of the same name), a shot-on-16mm (but edited to tape, and presented here from a tape master) serial-killer road thriller that plays a bit like a DIY bargain-bit riff on The Hitcher. The bonus feature is a weird, freewheeling, stonerish buddy comedy by way of Deliverance, the shot-on-VHS Redneck County Fever (1992). While enjoyment of, and patience for, both will very much depend on one’s personal taste for microbudget trash made for video store shelves at the dawn of the 90s, there is fun to be had with both features, and as always, Visual Vengeance have knocked it out of the park when assembling this disc.
THE FILMS:
In HIGHWAY TO HELL (1990) a young woman is headed home from college on a school break just as a brutal serial killer has escaped from prison and gone on the run. She has the bad luck to cross paths with him, and becomes his hostage, speeding along the highway at knifepoint and trying to find a way out of her deadly predicament. But bodies pile up every time they stop the car, and all her attempts to alert others to her plight keep failing. Only one tough cop with a score to settle (Richard Harrison, he with the Garfield phone in Ninja Terminator) is determined to catch the killer.
It’s a serviceable if unremarkable premise, executed as a serviceable if unremarkable movie. Directed by Bret McCormick, whose The Abomination and RepliGator are both minor cult classics of the straight-to-VHS era, Highway to Hell is made with a reasonable amount of skill and panache. For the most part it is pretty well-shot for a shot-on-16mm, edited-to-tape feature, with some strong cinematography, and some very effective use of car-mounted camera rigs during the many sequences that are set behind the wheel. It also has some effectively shocking moments of violence, as the killer racks up a sizeable body count – including a genuinely surprising and nasty moment where the film breaks one of the usual rules of horror and brutally kills a kid. It doesn’t have much in the way of effects work, but what it lacks in gore effects it makes up for in an effectively mean vibe. And the movie even had the budget for some cool police chases, even involving a helicopter, which really raises the production value. Between the nasty kills, the police chases, and the bleached-out, sun-baked visuals shot in the Texas heat, the film captures a pretty solid 70s-exploitation/grindhouse feeling, which some viewers will surely dig.
But that said, it also has a lot of problems and signs of its micro-budget – although those can also add to the fun, depending on your perspective. The movie’s celebrity name, Richard Harrison, was on the production for a single weekend, shooting dialogue scenes that clearly feel isolated from the rest of the film; his plot thread feels completely extraneous, and it is clear that it was shot separately. He also generally seems bored and apathetic toward the film – an impression which is borne out by his absolutely hilarious, very short interview about the movie in the special features. The rest of the cast at least fully commits, but whether that results in a good performance or camp absurdity varies. As the killer, Benton Jennings can be pretty effectively creepy and sleazy in dialogue scenes (at times reminding me of an American Timothy Spall), but when he flies into a homicidal frenzy, his performance is absurdly over the top, and often reminded me of a Tim Robinson bit. His character’s tendency to yell “Shut up! Shut up!” when killing someone had me constantly thinking of Robinson’s “F*ck, f*ck, he’s trying to make it look fake!” and similar refrains. Blue Thompson, on the other hand, is pretty good, and genuinely gives her all to the lead performance which is largely responsible for carrying the film.
At the end of the day, Highway to Hell is a very okay movie which is basically just a curiosity of regional cinema. It never really excels as a tense cat-and-mouse thriller, nor does it go hard enough into horror violence to make it cult-classic-worthy, but it does a decent enough job as both horror and thriller that it’s an entertaining, reasonably fun time when you’re watching it. It’s the kind of movie that would make for a decent Friday night if it was the early-90s and you had rented it on VHS at your local mom and pop video store, and picked up some pizza and beer on the way home. And that’s really all it needs to be, and plenty of B-movie fans will have a good time with it on those terms. Especially the kinds of B-movie fans who enjoy the kinds of stuff that Visual Vengeance releases.
REDNECK COUNTY FEVER (1992) was produced by Bret McCormick and directed by Highway to Hell’s screenwriter, Gary Kennamer, and they made it as a for-hire gig for notorious cheap-shlock producer/director David DeCoteau. It is a major step down in quality from Highway to Hell on every level: shot on VHS instead of 16mm film, and made even cheaper, faster, and dirtier. But Kennamer and McCormick at least had the self-awareness to know that they were making no-budget shlock, and that it would be a mistake for the film to take itself too seriously. They made the wise choice to lean into the absurdity and camp, and make the film a comedy. In this one, a pair of idiot stoner college buddies are driving home from school for Thanksgiving when their car dies in the middle of nowhere, and they have to hitch-hike into a redneck town full of weird characters. Soon they run afoul of weird townies, a small-time criminal named Big Bad Bob, and a backwoods cannibal lunatic who decides he wants them for dinner, after playing hide-and-seek with his food.
The humor is very broad and very dumb, and the performances are as over-the-top as possible. It is ostensibly a comedy, but the tone isn’t really all that thought-out; it’s very freewheeling and chaotic, and not necessarily in a good way, although it does have a certain DIY charm. My biggest issue with it, though, is that because of what a cheap, fast, and dirty production it is, they didn’t have the time (or didn’t put in the effort) to shoot many tight shots or cutaways, so almost the entire film is shot in long, unbroken, static wide shots that are purely utilitarian. Highway to Hell is at least pretty well-shot, with some variety, imagination, and panache; Redneck County Fever has entire scenes that play out like a play, as a flat static wide shot holds for several minutes. This one can be fairly patience-testing.
Still, there is some fun to be had, if you’re a fan of goofy shot-on-video trash that feels totally DIY. This one is for the serious shot-on-VHS fans only, though; for many or most viewers, this won’t be a great time. It was wise for Visual Vengeance to include this as the B-side feature, and not give it its own release. I am glad they included it, though, and it was a passably entertaining one-time watch.
THE VISUAL VENGEANCE BLU-RAY:
Unlike the last Visual Vengeance disc I reviewed, Highway to Hell has the distinction of not having been actually shot on video, but on 16mm film. However, sadly the negatives were lost or destroyed sometime over the years, and the film only survived on its tape master, as the movie was edited to tape. So despite being shot on film, it basically looks like a shot-on-video movie here; maybe just a bit sharper. Still, Visual Vengeance restored the tape master the best they could, and it looks perfectly fine for what it is. You can really see the difference in picture quality when you switch over to Redneck County Fever, which, having been shot on VHS, has a much softer, blurrier look with more color-bleed.
When it comes to extras, I am once again amazed at what a spectacular roster of special features Visual Vengeance were able to pull together for such obscure and forgotten films. There are interviews with director/producer Bret McCormick and writer/director Gary Kennamer about both films, which are quite interesting and provide some good background and context about both projects. There are also commentaries by McCormick on Highway to Hell and McCormick and Kennamer on Redneck County Fever, which likewise are pretty fun and informative, and give some good insights into microbudget DIY filmmaking of the day. For Highway to Hell there are also interviews with actress Blue Thompson and bit-part actor Tom Fegan, both of whom clearly remember the movie quite fondly. And then there is the very very short interview with actor Richard Harrison, who… does not remember the film fondly, to put it mildly. It is one of the funniest special features I’ve ever seen.
All in all, it is a far nicer and far swankier release than anyone could have possibly hoped for or even wanted for Highway to Hell and Redneck County Fever. Fans of early-90s straight-to-VHS trash, of the kind you might have rented at your local mom and pop video store, should have a great time with this release. Neither movie is all that good, but they are both pretty fun, and the right kind of VHS junk, if you have a taste for it. And the extras assembled by Visual Vengeance always encourage the viewer to appreciate each film for what it is, and have fun with them on their own terms.
- Christopher S. Jordan