“6 Degrees of Hell” is amateurish to its core. From the writing to the acting to the technical presentation, it is low-grade horror. This may actually win it some cult points down the road among horror fiends, but the rest of us just wish it was a good movie.
The story is … well, you tell me. Oh yeah, you didn’t see it. Don’t worry. I actually watched the darn thing and still can’t tell exactly what it was about. There was a group of friends, a psychic, a horror house, a ghost hunter, some sort of demon and Cory Feldman smoking what I’m pretty sure was an electric cigarette. That’s about as helpful as I can be. Sorry.
Speaking of Feldman, he seems to be one of the big selling points of this feature, out this week on DVD, but he’s in the movie for maybe 10 minutes. And I’m not saying anyone expects Feldman to make “Goodfellas,” but even he should make better crap than this.
The rest of the cast is a bunch of unknowns who I don’t think will be making names for themselves anytime soon. They’re not terrible, but who could actually make this incomprehensible script work anyway? Why did this thing earn a green light?
I’ll tell you why: Parts of “Hell” are shot on location at a real Halloween attraction in Pennsylvania called the Hotel of Horror, and the movie is an obvious selling pitch for the attraction. It’s a pretty lame excuse to make a pretty lame movie.
The saddest part is, however, that the gimmick could’ve worked. The last third of the movie takes place in the Hotel of Horror and has people running around not knowing what’s real and what’s not. It provided laughs and actual scares.
And hence, the film’s biggest mistake: “Hell” ends with Feldman’s character ready to enter the hotel, and I kept wondering why this wasn’t the opening to the film. With Feldman in the lead and the whole movie taking place inside the real attraction, we could’ve been up for some real scares and some tongue in cheek moments.
Instead, the producers want to pretend this is a straightforward horror movie, and they strive for something that they simply cannot succeed.
The DVD comes with no extra features, and that felt like a blessing.
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