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‘Hell’s Highway’ is a pleasingly boisterous, super-splattery, sadly neglected S.O.V gem that merits rediscovery not simply due to its ribald sense of blackened humour, dumbbell overacting from a clearly game cast, and some righteously gnarly, if unsophisticated chunk-blowage! A clamorous group of ubiquitously horny, ceaselessly stoned, permanently party-hungry, frequently trash-talking buddies are enjoying a high jinks, low brow, high speed road trip into the sun-baked, dust-blown deserted badlands and staying true to the devil-may-care exuberance of youth they decide to pick up a conspicuously attractive, devil-hearted girl apparently stranded alone in a pretty serviceable example of ‘the middle of freaking nowhere’ and once they pick up this sinuously saucy, raven-tressed, perkily-breasted passenger, Polonia (Phoebe Dollar) her initial, disingenuously light-hearted jesting very soon takes a bloodier, wrong-headed turn onto Hell's Highway!
For a clearly limited budget,Gung ho independent filmmaker, Jeff Leroy certainly makes the best of it by keeping things rollicking along at a blistering pace, and while it certainly ‘aint pretty to look at, prurient interest is rigidly maintained throughout by the plentiful distractions of lava-hot B-Movie babes and a hellacious series of sanguineous deaths via myriad cheap n’ skeevey gore gags! ‘Hell’s Highway’ proves to be a gutsy little blood-spiller that knows when to wear its blackened heart on its blood-caked sleeve, and when to sordidly slop its greasy entrails onto the tarmac like a boss!
This is gaudy-looking H.G Lewis/ Al Adamson schlock for the video age and the fact that it’s all gallopingly grisly, Lo-fi and faintly absurd merely increases its intrinsic trash movie value. While Hell's Highway is plainly not refined art, it is far from artless, and for all it lacks in Hollywood gloss and megabucks plastic pizazz it more than compensates in guts, which it sheds copiously for the crude edification of S.O.V obsessed gorehounds! Additional plaudits must also be given for the audaciously lusty performance by vivaciously villainous, potty-mouthed, Phoebe Dollar as the deliciously demonic, hell-raising harpy, Lucindia Polonia, and the exceptionally fine score by soundtrack wizard, Jay Woelfel.
For a clearly limited budget,Gung ho independent filmmaker, Jeff Leroy certainly makes the best of it by keeping things rollicking along at a blistering pace, and while it certainly ‘aint pretty to look at, prurient interest is rigidly maintained throughout by the plentiful distractions of lava-hot B-Movie babes and a hellacious series of sanguineous deaths via myriad cheap n’ skeevey gore gags! ‘Hell’s Highway’ proves to be a gutsy little blood-spiller that knows when to wear its blackened heart on its blood-caked sleeve, and when to sordidly slop its greasy entrails onto the tarmac like a boss!
This is gaudy-looking H.G Lewis/ Al Adamson schlock for the video age and the fact that it’s all gallopingly grisly, Lo-fi and faintly absurd merely increases its intrinsic trash movie value. While Hell's Highway is plainly not refined art, it is far from artless, and for all it lacks in Hollywood gloss and megabucks plastic pizazz it more than compensates in guts, which it sheds copiously for the crude edification of S.O.V obsessed gorehounds! Additional plaudits must also be given for the audaciously lusty performance by vivaciously villainous, potty-mouthed, Phoebe Dollar as the deliciously demonic, hell-raising harpy, Lucindia Polonia, and the exceptionally fine score by soundtrack wizard, Jay Woelfel.
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