First things first: if you’re one of those connoisseurs who feels the same way about horror as the way the characters in Sideways felt about wine, enter if ye dare. Do not expect a groundbreaking, defining horror film like Get Out or Hereditary. I trust that you, dearest HorrorBuzz readers, are smart enough to know what you’re getting into with a movie called Hell Fest. That being said, at the end of the day, I had fun.

The film follows a group of young adults who go to a surprisingly elaborate traveling horror-themed amusement park (think Knott’s Scary Farm on steroids), with the intent on getting drunk and participating in the most extreme activities possible in the park–as in, they would never be legal, ever. But a masked serial killer, who entertains himself by gutting people with a sno-cone knife and humming “Pop Goes the Weasel” to himself, has turned the park into his own personal playground and begins to hunt the group, one by one. Our heroine, the prudish horror-phobe Nat (Amy Forsyth), is the first to become suspicious of whom they assume is just a scare-actor going for employee-of-the-month. But as more people go missing, they realize he’s much more than just some over-zealous actor, but calling the cops is useless since everyone else still believes he’s just part of the show.

Hell Fest is a junk-food-horror film, essentially the Halloween candy of slasher films. You go out knowing what to expect, and there are about 5 different outcomes that can come of it; whether that be getting Milky Ways, Almond Joys, hard and stale Laffy Taffy, etc. tossed into your pumpkin bucket, or knowing any of the outcomes that could result from the plot, which obviously has been done before. But despite the predictability, there’s a nice sense of satisfaction you get from dumping out your candy loot and seeing everything you’ve collected on the way. Of course, you then eat all of it at once and feel like shit. But at the end of the day, you had fun, just like you always do every Halloween.

Easily anticipated plot points aside, director Gregory Plotkin succeeded in turning a B-movie concept into something cinematic, with a colorful aesthetic reminiscent of cult classics like Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses or George A. Romero’s Creepshow. The production design team did an excellent job at transitioning from the cheesy rides and mazes upon the group’s initial entry into the park to the detailed, nightmarish rooms in “The Deadlands,” an extreme immersive portion of the park where the actors are allowed to touch you–or do anything to you, really, as long as there are no physical injuries. Plotkin is mainly known for his work on Get Out and Happy Death Day as an editor, and manages to make the film’s usually cheap thrills suspenseful and, most of all, entertaining.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s a story that’s been done to death and has more jump scares than every James Wan movie combined. Weirdly, a good horror film should be like sex: spend most of the film with building tension and teasing, and save the jumps and climaxes for the end. But since most of Hell Fest is set inside horror mazes, which we all know is a never-ending sequence of jump scares, maybe that was the intent. The writing and acting were nothing to write home about, either–though the best aspect of the film by far was Bex Taylor-Klaus’s performance as Taylor, a plucky, promiscuous, punk rock girl with unmatched sass and who is up for absolutely anything.

The ultimate consensus: leave your film school degree at the door, embrace the inevitable low-budget horror films that come with the change of seasons and the influx of pumpkin spice lattes, and have fun (and be yourself).

***BONUS!***

I had the pleasure of photographing most of the cast and crew at a special screening at the TLC Chinese Theater in Hollywood–as well as some special surprise guests.

Robert Walker-Branchaud, “Father Figures”

Matt Mercurio as Asher

A creepy carnival barker

The children who lead you into The Deadlands…

Director Gregory Plotkin

Christian James as Quinn

Bex Taylor-Klaus as Taylor

Roby Attal as Gavin

Josh Peck and the serial killer

(L-R) the killer, Christian James, Matt Mercurio, an evil clown, Gregory Plotkin, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Deadlands children, Roby Attal, carnival barker