Hard Ride To Hell (2010)

Cast: Miguel Ferrer, Laura Mennell and Brendan Penny

Writers: Matthew Chernov, David Rosiak, Penelope Buitenhuis

Director: Penelope Buitenhuis

At first glance of the cover art, I couldn't help but think it had an uncanny resemblance to "Drag Me To Hell". With the title being almost similar, I couldn't help but think this was a Low Budget knock off (Even though that wouldn't be such a bad thing) But, it wasn't, it was it's own film and was rather original and rather interesting as well. I didn't expect much from it, but I did watch with a clear mind and with out biased potential so I can do my best to enjoy the film as I try to every film I watch. It's easy to do with any film, but many can be hard to swallow or extremely hard to swallow in the case of the film being dreadful and lame. However, this film gave me something to enjoy.

The film opens up in Texas where we see a man and his son walking with their mule in what appears to be the western times. They run into some crazy woman, who takes a bite out of daddy and is put down by some Cowboys from hell. The boy is given an amulet by his father, said to protect him and the film jumps into present day where our cowboys are now the satanic sons of anarchy.(not their name just a bad joke) We now see a group of friends cruising in their camper going out for a little camp in a remote area. They run into an ex-military guy who sells knives and he warns them to becareful. Later on in the evening, one of the guys decides to bleed the main vain and stumbles upon the evil bikers doing a ceremony. He thinks it's pretty awesome until they start eating all the hot nude chicks and spot him. He runs to get his friends to get the hell out of dodge when they're all caught except one smart gal who hid. The bikers reveal they are looking for a host to impregnate to release the antichrist upon the world and have chose one of the lucky females in the group to bare it. Do they succeed in their evil plot for dominating the world in leather or do they fail? Gotta watch to find out.

The plot, is certainly different. I cant quite put my finger on it, but the feel of the film is different. I don't know if I'm confused by it or what. But it most certainly is a horror flick. It kinda felt like a homage of "The Hills Have Eyes" with a pinch of "Ghost Town" and a few others, but at the same time didn't which gave it it's only little blend of originality, although feeling far too familiar. I can't write it off as cliche' cause I've never seen anything like this. The characters were average, minus the evil bikers who were nutty and the ex military knives guy. The acting was decent and the direction of the film wasn't to bad either. It was very cinematic and looked like something that could have hit theaters and would've failed because people don't seem to like fictional plots these days. (Well at least the popcorn crowd)

The violence was okay, there wasn't an abundance of gore but then again gore isn't the only thing that makes a movie good. You can make a quality film of the aspect of the story itself. It's all about execution and this film, in my opinion was very well executed. You have a nice body count and it isn't overly done. In fact it seems quite suiting to the tone of the film and feels right. Some of the death scenes got a reaction from me, but not in the sense that I was really impressed, just pleased with and enjoyment. Sure many would probably prefer more gore, since suddenly gore is on high demand, but I feel this was fine as it was and there's a nice amount of violence as is.

Overall, I dug this movie. It kept me watching and interested, but at the same time wondering why I was interested. It's not a bad movie in my opinion and I'm not too sure what to point out for them to make it better. But it's not a jump to see movie either, you can pass it along for plenty of other flicks. It is worth checking out however, I guess cause it's rather humorous to see a group of demon bikers. Which is kind of down played cause we know they're old, know they're demonic but look like normal bikers. Well I guess that's one thing they could have worked on.(and I could work on paying better attention to my own words as to not completely contradict myself) All and all it's a tolerable film and I enjoyed it, it's the type of movie, if I owned, I would watch once in a while cause it gave me a different feeling. Can't explain what that feeling is, but I guess it's a feeling of amusement and confusion, but not in a bad way.

3/5