The Plot:
Sometime back in the '60s, the government asked Professor Jones of the Kant Institute for the Gifted to create an experimental drug that would render geniuses even smarter. Experimenting on homeless people, Jones developed a highly addictive concoction called "The Reward" which makes its users strong. Unfortunately, its sole side effect is a tendency toward bloodlust and homicide. When his trials on the school's students proved fatal, Jones goes underground, and would have stayed there had an investigative reporter named Robert not looked into the scandal. Now a hopeless recluse living in the campuses abandoned chapel, Robert is convinced Jones is still around. When a new group of undergraduates prove powerful enough to spur his interest, Jones returns, and brings a few of his lab rat failures along for the killing spree. Determined to find the right combination of mental and physical fortitude to continue his work, the Professor and his pack of ferocious killers pick off their potential test subjects one by one. Eventually, all that's left is Robert, and young student Shelly. She must try and save the day while defeating Jones. It's the only way to keep this Hellmaster from destroying the world.

The DVD:
How does one begin to discuss Hellmaster? Would a standard 'huh' do? How about a slangy 'what the f*ck'? Maybe a good 'um, excuse me' would sum it up properly? Or maybe, just maybe, a straightforward 'what was that' does the job best? Whatever the case may be and however you decipher this hopelessly handicapped epic, you sure won't be cognizant of anything that first time filmmaker Douglas Schulze is or was intending. With a plot that tends to cut out the narrative middle man and only focus on a few dozen finales, and a sense of the supernatural that is more scattered than scary, this junior jumble of a genre joke is about the most laugh out loud ludicrous film to ever come out of the state of Michigan. Made with what appears to be a sledgehammer filled with subtlety, and confusing religion with rationale for all the so-called macabre going on, Schulze can't decide if he's making a zombie flick, a possession film, a conspiracy theory thriller or a typical teen slasher movie. Hellmaster incorporates all these elements into its overbaked narrative, and then throws in some riffs on Clive Barker's Cenobites and Street Trash's human meltdown mannerisms, and calls it a diabolical day. Oddly enough, the results are ridiculous, yet end up being so brazenly baffling that you can't help but watch. Kind of like a car wreck, only with more casualties.

Perhaps Hellmaster is a movie that works better in snippets. After all, one does get a bit of a scary movie stiffee the minute Dawn of the Dead's David "Flyboy" Emge appears as a reporter turned homeless hero, and the presence of genre stalwart John Saxon is good for a little horror horniness as well. But both end up being underused, their characters nothing more than archetypes (mad doctor, ruined man seeking redemption) operating on autopilot. As for the cast of potential victims, none stands out or manages to make us care. Even our self-loathing "cripple" Joel is like Jimmy Volmer without the stand-up comedy - or South Park's cutting edge social satire. Basically, he's just bum legs and a really sour attitude. Other blink and you'll miss them members of this goofy gang include a right-wing wacko who carries a whip (???) as his means of self defense, a wussified wimp who, naturally, is given a gun and told to save the day, and a blond bimbette who watches her boyfriend get butchered by Saxon's so-called "monkey man" and then idly walks back to the rest of her pals. As a potential slaughter party, this group is guaranteed to make the villains look viable by comparison. Unfortunately, Schulze messes that up too. Our bad guys are the kind of giggling, snickering sickos that fail to do anything really menacing. They talk a good game, and are handy with the homemade scythes, but when it comes to being true bad asses, Zoltan the Hound from Hell is far more sinister.

So why should one care about this poorly realized wretchedness? Well, frankly, it's rare to see such a completely incompetent film. Usually, directors strive to give their productions pacing, characterization, logic, professionalism, tone, mood, atmosphere, thematic resonance, emotional underpinning and some manner of inherent or implied entertainment value. Hellmaster is blissfully ignorant of such cinematic standards. Instead, it works within its own idiosyncratic sense of reason, randomly accessing action without explanation, and killing off people without the first pretense of providing a motive. Like a psychedelic sideshow where the geeks all drop acid and regurgitate their chicken heads onto a mostly comatose crowd, this film defies description. Name another film that would present its antagonists as a ragtag group of religious evangelists, all decked out in nun's habits, shirts and ties and driving a dilapidated bus with the name 'Happy Face Bible School' on the side. Point to another plot – aside from the one in Bride of the Monster – where a doctor is determined to create a race of super humans for his own unholy bidding (something to do with stealing souls, or sucking spirits, or just plain sucking). From its overuse of red lighting (with nary a Roxanne in sight) to the Creeple People goop that substitutes for the acid-based killer drug, Hellmaster is a friggin' fabulous disaster. If you are a bad movie maven, you will instantly cotton to Schulze's corrupt creation. All others be warned – this flaccid film is not for the weak willed or aesthetically brittle.

The Video:
No, Hellmaster wasn't filmed during a blizzard. The snow you see is the result of numerous scratches and specs of dirt littered along the 1.33:1 transfer. To call this a less than stellar image is like calling this film a post-modern macabre classic. The colors are muted (except for the everpresent reddish-pink mood lighting utilized) and the picture is murky and overly dark. While it's not as bad as something like, say, Shadows Run Black, it is still pretty close to a digital disaster.

The Audio:
Recorded with what appears to be a microphone with a directional mind of its own, some of the dialogue, especially at the beginning, is indistinct. The Dolby Digital Stereo mix is a mess, with music too loud and effects constantly overwhelming the conversations. Even more unusual, the credits include mention of dubbed voices for many of the "monsters" in the movie. It just goes to show you how unexceptional this aural offering is that we barely notice…or care.

The Extras:
Aside from a self-congratulatory commentary from writer/director Schulze and producer Kurt Eli Maryr and a photo gallery/collection of conceptual art, there is nothing else of substance on this basically bottom barrel DVD release. As for the alternate narrative track, it's passable. Finally given an opportunity to defend their film, Schulze and Maryr try like 'heck' to make sense of the scrambled storyline before them. Loaded with excuses and technical mumbo jumbo, you can feel the pride pouring out of these guys. Granted, it is their movie, but the professionalism they profess is just not up on the screen. Also, this version of the film is considered the "Unrated Director's Cut". Supposedly, you're getting more insanity for your sawbuck this time around.

Final Thoughts:
How you respond to Hellmaster will depend greatly on your inner desire to dispense with many of the fright flick pleasantries and simply enjoy a manically mangled motion picture. While not the greatest cinematic atrocity ever foisted on a genre-loving public, this movie may also drive you to disavow your love of all things scary. As a result, it is probably a potent litmus test for one's true dread tendencies, and deserves a Recommended rating on that factor alone. Others will argue that something so scattered, so lost in its own sense of lunatic logic deserves to be despised, not defended, and on some level, those sentiments are valid. No one will ever call this film a Hellmasterpiece. Yet, every once in a while, a cinematic category has a right not to take itself so seriously, or sanely. As perplexing as it is peculiar, and visa versa, Hellmaster is not just so bad it's good – it's so terrible it's terrific. In the realm of b-movie cheese, it's cheddarific!

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