‘Hellbilly Hollow’ Review
Stars: Hallie Shepherd, Kurt Deimer, Sandra Ellis Lafferty, Danny Vinson, Kevin Wayne, McKalin, Ariana Livingston | Written by Bernadette Chapman | Directed by Kevin Wayne
A gang of paranormal investigators. A tragedy in the not-too-distant past, leaving a disfigured child in its wake. A supposedly haunted horror-themed attraction in the backwoods. A hulking monster in a clown mask. Hellbilly Hollow certainly isn’t short of ideas.
What it is short of, as becomes immediately evident, is money. Hellbilly Hollow is as low-budget as low-budget horror gets, from the ghastly cinematography to the more wooden performances by its younger cast members. This means that it’s all hands on deck for filmmaker Kevin Wayne (directing from a screenplay by Bernadette Chapman), who steps in to play disfigured giant Tickles.
This beefy great mute is the main force hunting producer Mabel (Hallie Shepherd) and her team when they investigate a supposedly haunted horror maze in rural America. Hearing tell of an entire travelling circus killed in a devastating blaze, they’re hooked. However, as run by Bull (Halloween 2018’s Kurt Deimer), this operation is but a front for the real game – the wholesale slaughter of pretty young things with his ‘little’ brother, Tickles.
It’s a good job Tickles has such broad shoulders, for he winds up carrying much of the film on his back. Silent, disfigured killers are almost as overdone as murderers in clown masks at this point, and Tickles is both. But he looks great regardless, and the film’s grisly kill sequences are where Hellbilly Hollow truly shines, if only briefly.
Many of the film’s most glaring flaws can be excused by the budget. Less admissible is the clumsy pacing and sloppy structure, which prevents the film from ever breaking into more than a slow trudge through tropes previously seen in The Funhouse, 2000 (or 2001) Maniacs and House of 1000 Corpses. It’s also overly complicated for what it is, not leaning hard enough into the concept where it should. Instead, it tends to add too many moving parts to the mix – before immediately tripping over them.
Hellbilly Hollow is to be admired for its ambition, but the execution left me wanting much more.
