Hellweek (2010) Review

A rush week prank takes a turn for the gruesome in Fright Teck Pictures "Hellweek". A group of college students find themselves in a fight for their lives against a group of masked psychopaths who have been held up inside of an abandoned doll factory for years. A local legend that turns out to be true is ignored by the group, as they use the factory as part of their rush week initiations.

I just want to start off by giving you brief descriptions of a few of the "masked psychopaths" featured in this film, their leader is a fat Phantom of the opera look alike who reigns over a posse of the following: a man wearing a mask that looks like grandpa from TCM whose name happens to be "gramps" that wields a chainsaw and even does the signature Leatherface dance at one point chainsaw in hand, a man wearing a clown mask similar to that of Slipknot who at one point chases a girl while playing a banjo, and a hand full of other cliché filled characters that come from other known films throughout the ages. homage's are one thing, but this film felt like a total rip off from start to finish. "Hellweek" is a weird stew of horror clichés forcefully mashed together in hopes of coming off as retro and fun, but ultimately turns out as a poorly written, and dreadfully executed attempt at recreating the glory days of the Slasher films of the 70s and 80s.


 
The special effects are atrocious. There's a particular scene where a woman is hit with a sledgehammer and is cut in half with one swing as if it was the world sharpest axe cutting through a stick of butter. A lot of the time I found myself wondering if the blood was nothing more than watered down Kool-aid. Don't get me wrong I love low budget gore and horror but this had nothing to do with budget it was simply poorly done. Adding to the frustration of this film is the fact every time you think you're about to see something really cool it cuts to a different scene almost as if your watching a film that has been edited for TV. When you're finally given a little bit of gore, it's handled so poorly that it makes you want to turn the film off and see what's on the SyFy channel.



 
As far as the story goes, if I'm being honest, it's a complete clusterfuck.  It's almost like they tried to blend three or four bad scripts into one movie in hopes of producing a good finished product and failed miserably. It drags on for way longer than needed, and honestly I feel it would of made a better short than a feature. If a lot of the filler was removed, and the characters were given more original names and features, and the special effects were improved, it could of been interesting enough to fill the running time of a short. Overall I highly disliked this film and found no redeeming qualities. It would be wise of both fans of mainstream, and indie flicks to steer clear of "Hellweek".

2/10

- Ted "Ritualistic" Brown