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HELL'S HIGHWAY
Produced by Dave Sterling
Edited, Photographed, and Directed by Jeff LeroyLucindia Polonia - Phoebe Dollar
Sarah - Kiren David
Eric - Hank Horner (III)
Monique - Beverly Lynne
Jack - Ron JeremyDirector Jeff Leroy's recent horror effort, HELL'S HIGHWAY, isn't exactly what I would call monumental art. For that matter, it isn't even particularly eerie or frightening. It's that kind of dumb-fun harmlessness that the herbally impaired would seek out while Jonesing for some painless brain candy, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. Simply put, being "fun" can go a long seriously long way when it comes to enjoying today's horror entertainment.
HELL'S HIGHWAY never makes the mistake of taking itself seriously. It maintains a level of goofiness borderlining on camp, but never quite venturing into intentional cheesiness. It's a horror flick reminiscent of 80's classics like APRIL FOOL'S DAY or PANDEMONIUM. Not exactly parody or comedy, they're all high-energy efforts that breeze along with a self-deprecating sense of humor. They are what they are, and they don't hide it: dumb fun. All these movies want to do is deliver a good time.
Detailing a plot would be futile. All would-be viewers really need to know if that a crazy bitch, who may or may not be the devil, is hunting a carload of twenty-somethings along a barren stretch of desert. People get poisoned, stabbed, dismembered, and shot. At some point there's even a tasty shotgun bloodbath. There's carnage-a-plenty.
But carnage isn't my bag. It's the "wink-wink" sense of humor in HELL'S HIGHWAY that works for me. Ron Jeremy going the way of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE works for me. An out-of-left-field sequence where a cell phone call is edited to A FIST FULL OF DOLLARS works for me. Scenes where a sexual jackhammer doesn't want to finish performing after finding out that his brother may be dead while all the time jackhammer's nagging girlfriend keeps yelling for him to "get busy" with his backdoor duties...works for me.
Besides, can you really take a movie seriously when the main character is named after the King's of Goofball Horror, Mark and John Polonia? These are the gentlemen who unleashed FEEDERS unto the world, and co-wrote another upcoming release from Brain Damage Films, CARNAGE: THE LEGEND OF QUILTFACE. It was the Polonia's tongue-in-cheek dialogue on that Max Cerchi film which kept my entertainment cravings satisfied. In a way, one could consider all of HELL'S HIGHWAY to be an homage to the Polonia Brothers. After all, they were pioneers of shot-on-video horror and helped pave the way for the genre's success on video shelves.
The HELL'S HIGHWAY dvd comes with a number of extras including a production retrospective that seems more of an afterthought than a planned extra. There's also an extended version of that cell phone sequence set to Eastwood-inspired spaghetti western music. You'll also find footage shot at the premier of the Ron Jeremy documentary PORNSTAR and a Brain Damage Films trailer vault. Sadly, there's no commentary from either cast or crew.