Hard Ride to Hell

source: Hard Ride to Hell

At first when I sat down to watch this film I only barely had expectations for the little blended flick. I went in to the picture expecting minimal story and bad acting that seem to dominate and overshadow a lot of smaller films story and concept. However with this film I was wrong completely. It had an almost Evil Dead cult aspect to it that I felt back when I was a kid and watched that damn evil dead woman fight her way into that cabin. It was low budget and independent and full of energy and the same with this film. If you like your demon cults and devil worshipers with leather and gasoline then this film is for you most definitely. The story was a cool through back to films like "Devil Rider" and "Hell Rider" blended with satanic ritual and devil possession and action it is a great exploitation/horror flick. The acting as a little generic but a few characters pull of real emotion and believability. The effects and action sequences though make up for it. Mostly stunt and organic effects used here with a very minimal cgi other than what is mystically necessary for a scene or two. The film was enjoyable and I found myself thinking ahead to a sequel coming down the pike maybe for 2012 or something. There is still a lot more story here to explore. However the dialogue could have been a little deeper and fluid with the story. As some characters pulled of noticeable plausibility others seemed to almost phone it in just waiting for a payday. This film is a good one to see and if biker exploitation horror is a thing your into definitely pick it up. It has everything you may like. I don't normally go for biker horror stuff but I am not hetero so that pretty much should solve that. This film I liked a lot. It had psycho bikers, satanic worship, mythology, gore, action and possession. So yeah definitely a film for the collection.

I decided to watch this movie solely because it had Katharine Isabelle in it. And it turned out that the movie was every bit as bad as I had expected it to be! The storyline was straight forward, albeit generic and actually somewhat odd, as most of the things going on made little sense. You don't connect with any of the characters in the movie, as they are emotionless one-dimensional puppets milling around at the whim of director Penelope Buitenhuis. Miguel Ferrer did a fairly adequate job with his role, despite having next to nothing to work with. As for Katharine Isabelle, not that outstanding in this movie. The special effects in the movie were fairly alright, although you shouldn't hold your breath for anything spectacular. All in all, then "Hard Ride to Hell" is not really worth the effort, as there are far better horror movies available to pick from.

Hard Ride to Hell is set in Texas & starts as a group of teenage friends travel through the open isolated desert wastelands in their camper van when they pull over for the night & meet Bob (Brent Stait) a travelling salesman who sells knives. Bedding down for the night the dopey Dirk (Brandon Jay McLaren) decides to wander off to go to the toilet & stumbles upon a gang of Satan worshipping bikers sacrificing some young girls & eating their flesh, the biker's hear Dirk & go after him. Dirk heads straight for the camper van & his friends which lead the cannibal biker's to them as well & they are all held hostage, beaten, tortured & killed. The biker's leader Jefé (Miguel Ferrer) is looking to father the child of Satan, the Antichrist himself & decides that the pretty young Tessa (Laura Mennell) will do so spares her & her boyfriend who sets out to fight back against the biker's & save himself & the love of his life but the biker's have dark supernatural power's that make them nearly impossible to kill... Co-written & directed Penelope Buitenhuis this supernatural horror action thriller isn't too bad but at the same time will struggle to be remembered as a classic, Hard Ride to Hell is passable low budget straight-to-video fare that is maybe better than usual for this type of film but that in itself isn't saying a lot. This runs a fairly predictable path, teenagers get stuck in the open desert & come under attack from some various threat, in this case Satan worshipping cannibal biker's. It moves along at a fair pace, it has a few decent moments in it, some gore, there's a bit action & some vehicle stunts but I found it quite forgettable & nothing special without being utterly terrible. The only real problem I had was that Dirk remains awfully calm considering he has had his arm cut off & I salute his ability to crack a joke at any given moment despite missing an arm & the fact that the biker's can only be killed inside a Church on Holy ground & just by some complete coincidence the survivors decide to hide & fight it out inside a Church yet not knowing about their weakness. Oh, & I don't understand why Jefé just doesn't kill Bob at the end when he has the chance but, you know, whatever. There's a bit of gore here, an arm is chopped off, someone is made to walk over broken glass, there are a few stabbings, some chainsaw mayhem at the end as hands are cut off & people are sliced open but like the rest of the film while it's entertaining enough it's forgettable & doesn't leave much of an impression. The supernatural & action aspects aren't particularly well balanced but at least there's something happening more often than not. This is actually quite similar in theme to the classic Race with the Devil (1975) but is maybe a touch more generic. Probably shot on a low budget this has decent production values & is reasonably well made. The acting is nothing special with Miguel Ferrer who played the guy in Robocop (1987) who gets kneecapped the only face I recognised, he gets to shout & say all sorts of evil sounding lines & has fun with it but like everything else about Hard Ride to Hell he's forgettable. Hard Ride to Hell is a better than average straight-to-video low budget horror thriller that is mildly entertaining for what it is but I would struggle to say that it's a classic or anywhere near approaching one. You could do worse but then again you could do better.

I found Hard Ride to Hell a classic in grind house full-on biker action. It was entertaining and full of crazy surprises. A young group of travelers voyaging across Texas in an RV, innocently stumble upon a satanic group of bikers performing a disgusting ritual. All hell breaks lose after that and I really was scared for the kids being attacked by such horrible beings. Sure the film tries to pack a lot in, with a heavy back story dating back to old Spain, but the bikers do some serious damage and Katherine Isabelle is a knock out as the screaming girl who fights back. The chase sequences and stunts are great making it is more of an action horror than pure horror. The immortal bikers are both threatening and sometimes humorous, as I think they are supposed to be. The film spirals out of control as the bikers chase the motley young crew across Texas. The climax of good against evil is a spectacular show down. I would watch this film again.

This would be a video nasty in the 70s I guess. It's up to you to decide if you think this means it is out of date too. I think there still is an audience for this and it isn't all that bad as the rating might suggest. Having Miguel Ferrer in there gives the whole thing a lot of credibility. On the other hand you have a lot of clichés played out, with kids acting up (or not acting, depending on your view of things, I guess). While the kids could and should have been more sympathetic (a mistake other movies have made too), I did like the knife salesman. The actor who portrayed him had a good little job on this one. All in all, you can see where this is heading ... the first few minutes should indicate if you like it or not

A group of teenagers whilst on their camping trip in Texas witness an obscene blood sacrifice performed by Satanic bakers on two * girls.Our young friends must fight for their lives.The remaining survivors gather in an abandoned church for the final battle between good and evil..."Hard Ride to Hell" is obviously influenced by "Race with the Devil" and "Devil's Rain".Unfortunately the script is woeful and the characters are irritating.There is some decent gore,but I expected more blood spraying.Katherine Isabelle of "Ginger Snaps" fame is pretty wasted here as is Miguel Ferrer as the leader of devil-worshipping bikers.A generous 6 out of 10.Rather bland and forgettable horror flick with corny dialogue.

Now here's a movie that captures the sort of drive-in, grindhouse feel that I like. In spite of its low budget, it's a pretty well-made, acted and written tale of a group of traveling friends who inadvertently come across a group of Satanic bikers in the middle of a sacrifice and soon find themselves fighting for their lives. You had me at the mention of Satanic bikers, but the movie itself is paced very well. It's bloody and moves quickly. There are some acting issues, but there always are with low budget DTV movies, and there's enough going on that it's not a problem. Major props for the use of mostly real special effects. There's a tiny bit of dodgy CGI, but it's way better than a lot of other low budget films. Also, the ending is a tad anticlimactic, but there's so much fast paced violence before it that it goes down easy. The characters are handled well, a group of kids doing Habitat for Humanity work as well as a traveling salesman who's pretty handy with a knife. Also, Miguel Ferrer is perfectly hammy as the evil biker leader and seems to be having a lot of fun in the role. Though it's got some similarities to a few other films, there's plenty of fun things to enjoy: Satanic rituals, unkillable bikers (one biker gets his face dragged along moving asphalt....great scene!) nudity, torture, stabbings, and women impregnated with demon children. This throwback could've easily played at drive-ins in the 70s. Not the world's greatest horror movie, but a lot better and more fun than most of the garbage that goes straight to video.

Sometimes IMDb baffles me. I fully expected this movie to at least be in the high 4s or low 5s. But it's currently at 3.3? Geez...it's not awful. Sure, it's got it's problems, but I can think of at least a dozen movie that have come out in theaters within the last 6 months that I'd pass over for this one. As I said, the movie has problems. First of all, it's trying a little too hard to be the sort of terrorizing biker gang grindhouse kind of movie that it wants to be. It totally lacks the gritty feel of those movies. Plus the plot as a whole is a bit lame. Not bad, but it kind of feels stale. I understand the satanic biker angle, but making them some sort of immortals practicing black magic seems a bit much. Then the final 20 minutes or so feels more Dusk Til Dawn more than anything, so it's kind of all over the place. It's got a fair amount of splatter for the horror fans, but far less (I don't remember any) nudity than you'd expect from this type of movie. All in all I think a 5 is a fair rating. It's got problems, but it's not total crap. Just watch it for what it is...a mid-budget throwback wanna-be

source: Hard Ride to Hell