Highway to Hell

Highway to Hell 

1991

Director- Ate de Jong

Cast-  Patrick Bergen, Chad Lowe, Kristy Swanson, Adam Storke

            

    This movie is definitely not to be taken seriously. Calling it a horror comedy wouldn’t be accurate. Its more like a live action anime, if such things had existed in America in the early 90s. The premise is so outrageous, and the gags so obvious, that you have to enjoy the movie on face value.

            Charlie and Rachel (Chad Lowe and Kristy Swanson) are a young couple eloping to get married.  The take a wrong turn and pass through a portal to Hell. Rachel is taken by The Sergeant, the chief cop in Hell. Charlie chases after them to rescue his lost love. What follows is a tour through Hell (which happens to look just like the American southwest) as Charlie encounters various denizens along the Highway to Hell.

           

    The film boasts a surprising amount of early 90s star power. Patrick Bergan, as the devil, was at the height of his career and Kristy Swanson was only a year away from making Buffy theVampire Slayer. Adam Storke (Larry Underwood in The Stand) is a malcontent biker in Hell. Ben and Jerry Stiller have small parts as well as Lita Ford, Gilbert Godfrey (as Hitler!) and Kevin Peter Hall (the titular monster of the first 2 Predator films).

            Of course, the real stars of the films are the creatures. The make up by Steve Johnson is wonderful.  Johnson has, for some reason, never been as well-known as his predecessor, Rick Baker, but Johnson’s make up is top shelf and his work in the late 80s and early 90s was the best to be found in genre films. The centerpiece is the Hell Cop himself, who looks like Jason Stathum was horribly burned and then joined Judas Priest.

            The rest of the film is an excuse to try various sight gags; the road to Hell is clogged with VW bugs, the “Good Intentions” highway department chops of people and turns them into asphalt, a donut shop filled with undead cops etc.

            A movie like this would never get made today. It doesn’t take itself seriously enough for a modern audience. Only in the era of the video store could a movie like this get distributed and find an audience. Not a scary movie, but a fun movie, to be sure.