Hot Rod Horror (2008)

People are voting emotionally.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

good back-story, and good acting

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Somehow this film managed to assure me that enjoyable low budget 'bad' films are still being made today. I thought that things were becoming a bit emotionally detached as people can insert more CGI into their zero budget films (like Battle:Earth) but here we have a genuinely low budget film, without CGI, or Tarantino rip-offs, or over the top camera work. It's just a straight forward horror with really bad acting that looks as if it cost about ten quid to make.Story wise we've got a bunch of kids heading off to a scrap yard to get...something (not sure) while their girlfriends moan about such an unromantic outing. The sister of one of the guys there goes to get him as the scrappy is haunted. It is pretty much haunted by a guy who looks like a passing labourer who wandered onto the set.He's got a backstory though, but we'll get to that in a minute. What we have here is a film where people are looking for each for most of the duration of the film (like Legend of the Mummy 2, Museum of the Dead and Psycho Cop), and it's a plot device I hate. However, in this film the actors are so awful at trying to convey emotion that it becomes almost charming (like the emoting in Zombie Nosh, another zero-budget film that's pretty enjoyable).It's also a very vintage car oriented plot. I don't know if I would have survived the excitement of watching the actual race they carried out in the bad guy's flashback sequence, so I'm glad we just got a brief summary of what happened. If you like American cars, you might like this a bit more. If you like gore or boobs, then you'd better get out of here because you get about two seconds of gore and no boobs.What you do get is a guy with a mullet, a bald patch and another mullet on the front of his head, and various scenes of a girl trying to find somewhere to have a pee (or a crap I guess, never quite specified the second time round). There's enough cheese, Garth Marenghi level acting, and general badness to enjoy this from start to finish. I was never bored for a second.

Just spent the afternoon viewing a horror double bill before heading out for the night. The Shining was the other movie - understandably, that film has an experienced director, cast, crew and a budget that yielded what it sowed: a horror masterpiece. Hot Rod Horror - the second on the double bill - is the complete opposite. It wasn't the fatigue of the double bill that made me dislike this. We watched Hot Rod Horror first as we had preconceptions of The Shining through its reputation and having read the book. The thing I didn't like about this is its weak structure, terrible direction and bad dialogue. I got the feeling that the cast were amateurs - some were OK, whilst the others seemed not to know what they were doing. There's simply no tension or horror in Hot Rod Horror - the car lot of junk was cool and the film being shot in daylight gave me the presumption that I had a Texas Chainsaw Massacre / The Hills Have Eyes on me hands. Unfortunately, there was nothing here - no thrills, no suspense, no fun - looks reasonably shot for a low budget, but there's nothing here to write home about.

With the development of film technology, anyone can knock out something visual for the 'entertainment' of others nowadays and at a next-to-nothing cost. Unfortunately, this has produced a load of tripe hitting the internet, and straight to release DVDs.The makers of HRH (Hod Rod Horror - I've a feeling I'm gonna grow tired of writing this title in this review) are no exception; what they may have saved on using a scrapyard as the set to this movie (and used scrap for the rest of it), they've neglected to spend on entertainment value.One of the main problems (there are many) with HRH is that the audience's appreciation for entertainment is neglected; and that is a big problem if you create anything to stimulate an audience. Not that the actors are solely to blame for this. However, the selection is a desperate one... especially the big, ambling, constipated, blonde (Stephanie Hoover) who seems to barely exist as a human and always needs to run off to find privacy either to 'pee' or to spew (yeah, 'tis natural, if seeing a corpse and feeling nauseous, to have to hold it in and find a place to chuck instead of being real and doing what comes naturally - to vomit on the spot).When it comes to acting, what you discover in HRH, is a cast of amateurs (don't tell me that these individuals have studied acting - although Mark McPherson and Matt Severson do OK) thrown into a scrapyard and permitted to walk aimlessly around by a director who hasn't a clue to perform his main task... i.e. direct (just need to point that out to you, Darrell Mapson). Thus these dead beings wander and wonder around in a suspense-less environment, dramatically pursued by an incompetent 'menace' (ahem) of a ghost (ahem) whose role is to be hellbent on avenging his death 40-50 years earlier.Now, the so called car, 'Hot' rod, that gives the main portion to the title of this movie is something to behold. Being less than tepid - I've seen lawnmowers move quicker... and that's an insult to garden tools - the movie consequently stumbles sluggishly along as the 'menacing' motor hunts down the kids, who, 'frozen' (through fear of acting, no doubt) 'try' to flee, joggingly quiet, dumb through fear (or is it through shock of being cast in such a crap movie?) into the next 'what do I do here, Mr Director' scene. Unintentionally amusing is one scene where the car runs over Jenny's cellphone. This is achieved with the 'Hot' rod slowing down (if that's possible) just to make sure it doesn't miss the phone in its tracks. Besides the car affecting the pace of HRH, are the aforementioned actors who aren't allowed to breathe and inject some life into this movie; as a result, there's little difference between the kids in their living and dead states - both are mute and stiff.Others reasons for the poor acting and quality of HRH is the lame script everyone had to work with. Oh, if you check the credits, you'll notice that this is written by the same guy who portrays the menacing murderer, Axel (Willy Ortlieb). Why oh why didn't any of the cast or crew question the poor value of this scriptwriting? Lines are either unrealistic or just pointless... I guess there must have been a bit of nepotism going around concerning Mr Ortlieb's role in HRH (you'll also notice a couple of other Ortliebs in HRH too). The editor, Lisa Donette May, is another culprit for the catastrophe that is HRH through neglecting to control the finished state of this movie: there are so many pointless scenes where nothing happens and thus slow down a no-go film. Lisa, what did you actually cut? This is not a Terrence Mallick film, where a scene can compose of stillness yet resonate in tranquility and beauty. It's a disaster, so 'cut to the chase' when you edit in future... pardon the pun.Regardles of all these faults, I managed to strenuously watch all of HRH - just out of sheer curiosity to see what else could go wrong. One bit of advice: fast forward the 'Hot' rod scenes - just as a means to inject some life into that wagon and make that piece of junk move.... oh, and if you're going to have a ghost, maker of HRH, give 'im a car that'll not age: the whole thing's a rust bucket.. and so is this movie, which is an insult to films made on a cheap budget, but actually work! PS: There are positive reviews to this movie, but as I sense they've been left by someone connected to HRH, I'd be very wary.

I'm not sure where anyone could find merit enough to give a movie this bad more than 3 stars at the most. It is total camp and filled with horrible acting. The story line itself wasn't that bad but the acting was so bad that at times it seemed like they were reading their lines from Que cards. The person or persons that own the wrecking yard has a gold mine though. The old Harley "Knucklehead" at the beginning of the movie was the only prop that was worth any real money. I have heard of shoestring budgets for making movies, this one is beyond broke. Glad I didn't pay money to see this flick, ugh. It gets a generous 3 out of ten.