Verdict
Summary
A low-fi, shot-on-video exploitation film that is stripped to the bone, but somehow manages to still feel like a real movie despite its obvious and glaring shortcomings, Bret McCormick’s Highway to Hell is exactly as advertised. Something really must be said about the specialty label Visual Vengeance because they go way above and beyond in bringing these grungy titles to Blu-ray in high definition. The films they release were all either shot on grainy 16mm or videotape, and are typically very obscure (which I dig), but then they actually spend some money on the artwork (which I love) and in supplemental features, booklets, posters, stickers, and all kinds of jazz. With commentaries, interviews, and even a bonus feature film on this disc (Redneck County Fever from 1992, a whole other can of banjo!), this release is completely stacked. Amazing!
Plot:
A crazed killer escapes prison and goes on a rampage.
Review:
Fran (Blue Thompson) wakes up at 6 a.m. just like every other morning and makes ready for her day, intending on taking a drive through Texas to visit some family. At the same time, an incarcerated rapist and killer named Toby Gilmore (Benton Jennings) manages to get the drop on some guards, kills them, and escapes prison. It all happens very quickly, but within the hour the word gets out that the mass killer is on the loose, which ends up making its way to the cop who originally brought him to justice, a blue collar blowhard named Earl (Richard Harrison who starred in dozens of bad ninja movies). Earl grabs his gun, gets in his car, and goes hunting. Toby, a complete loose cannon, leaves a trail of bodies and carnage behind him, killing defenseless old ladies, children playing in the road, and truckers, whose vehicles he carjacks, so Toby isn’t that hard to find. When he runs out of gas in the truck he steals, he carjacks Fran, who manages to escape his clutches and his first attempt at rape, and when another innocent driver picks her up and tries to take her to safety, Toby is already at the next rest stop where the bloody and shocking climax happens.
A low-fi, shot-on-video exploitation film that is stripped to the bone, but somehow manages to still feel like a real movie despite its obvious and glaring shortcomings, Bret McCormick’s Highway to Hell is exactly as advertised with a completely irredeemable villain with zero sympathetic qualities; he’s evil, unhinged, a rapist, a cold-blooded, cackling murderer of all types, a racist, and a total psycho. A better script and a more accomplished director might’ve given this character a little more nuance, but no: He’s just a bulldozer of insanity and evil. Name star Harrison doesn’t do much in the film and doesn’t really figure into the climax the way I was expecting him to, and even with some “action” sprinkled throughout the movie (there’s a helicopter!) the film ends up feeling much more of a thriller than an action film. Fans of low-fi exploitation movies might appreciate this more than others.
Something really must be said about the specialty label Visual Vengeance because they go way above and beyond in bringing these grungy titles to Blu-ray in high definition. The films they release were all either shot on grainy 16mm or videotape, and are typically very obscure (which I dig), but then they actually spend some money on the artwork (which I love) and in supplemental features, booklets, posters, stickers, and all kinds of jazz. With commentaries, interviews, and even a bonus feature film on this disc (Redneck County Fever from 1992, a whole other can of banjo!), this release is completely stacked. Amazing!
