Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Hell Fest 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 3, 2019

Chances are very few if any of you coming to this review have heard of, let alone actually seen, a couple of films I reviewed over the past couple of years, but I couldn’t help but think that someone associated with Hell Fest may have stumbled across either The Devil's Carnival or its kinda sorta follow up Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival somewhere along the line, since Hell Fest has more than a few elements in common with those two films. All three films feature what amount to theme parks inhabited by what appear to be denizens of “down under” (not that one, the place with the big horned guy), and all three feature a somewhat lurid lighting design that tends to bathe things in weird, almost hallucinogenic, tones of orange, blue, green and red. All three films also offer a glut of characters in outlandish makeup and/or costumes, often as "employees" of their respective parks. Hell Fest is more in the “slasher” mode (rut?) than either of The Devil’s Carnival films, but for those who are fans of this particular film, I suggest checking out the two previous outings to see if you can see the same similarities that I did. Hell Fest has some undeniable scares, and it’s frequently kind of unsettlingly moodly, but it’s also awfully formulaic a lot of the time, including its proffering of a masked slayer whose real face is never seen and who is known as The Other (not this one, and, yes, I’m joking).

Both of The Devil’s Carnival films admittedly offer a more literal interpretation of “good vs. evil”, including the longstanding struggle between the ruler of heaven and his recalcitrant fallen angel far, far below, but in terms of presentational style and even some of the interchanges between theme park visitors and employees, Hell Fest is surprisingly in league with that particular devil. The film begins with a brief vignette documenting some girls making (or attempting to make) their way through some kind of scary labyrinth at a theme park, with one of the girls mentioning how freaked out she is that some guy has been following her the entire time they’ve been there. Unless you’ve never seen a horror film before in your entire life, you can probably guess what happens next — that particular female is separated from her friends and is almost immediately accosted by the masked culprit, who summarily stabs her and then hangs her from the ceiling in what almost appears to be a “trophy room” of his previous victims— or are the other hanging bodies merely dummy props? Oooh — scary! .

The film then predictably segues to a brightly lit outdoor moment where Natalie (Amy Forsyth) is shown arriving at the apartment of her BFF Brooke (Reign Edwards). Stabs (sorry) at character development are offered here, with Natalie being presented as someone in the throes of uncertainty, and furthermore distressed to find out that she may be the third wheel in this get together, since Brooke is rooming with Taylor (Bex Taylor-Klaus), a kind of abrasive girl whom Natalie definitely does not consider a BFF. Add in three males as partners for these women, and you have your basic teen sextet (emphasis kind of surprisingly not on the sex in this horror outing, but I digress) who decide to visit Hell Fest and some of whom of course are going to be picked off one by one as the film progresses.

Now one place where Hell Fest actually achieves some viscerally frightening aspects is in one of the first kills, which (again, kind of surprisingly) is not one of the six focal characters. Instead, Natalie, Brooke and Taylor do indeed run across The Other (Stephen Conroy), but almost tangentially, as he’s already on the hunt for another girl. That unfortunate victim is slain right before Natalie’s eyes, but she thinks it’s just an extremely realistic part of the theme park experience. Hell Fest repeatedly tries to play off of this “what is really threatening and what isn’t” ambience, but unfortunately it falls victim to the law of diminishing returns.

Probably needless to say, there are ultimately victims among the six main characters, and admittedly the kill scenes will probably satisfy gore hounds who like things violent and bloody. There seems to be genuine camaraderie among the cast (as also evidenced by the brief EPK included as a supplement), and the film is generally well staged and stylishly shot, but this is one theme park that many will probably feel like they’ve visited before, whether or not they’ve seen either of The Devil’s Carnival films.

Hell Fest 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots are sourced from the 1080p Blu-ray.

Hell Fest is presented on 4K UHD courtesy of Lionsgate Films with a 2160p transfer in 1.85:1. While a member has uploaded data suggesting this was finished at a 2K DI, I have found no authoritative data to confirm that, for whatever that's worth (I don't consider the "real or fake 4K" website a source of authoritative information, since no provenance for the data there is included). That said, Hell Fest really looks quite good in 4K, with Dolby Vision really adding to the already weirdly hallucinogenic colors that are on display due to both lighting and grading choices. The palette is beautifully suffused throughout this presentation, and some of the reds and oranges especially are almost incredibly vivid. Shadow detail is at least marginally improved in several extremely dark scenes, and fine detail enjoys some noticeable upticks. The admittedly slight banding issues I noticed in the 1080p version are ameliorated, though there are still passing splotches of blues and purples that show up now and again. Interestingly, this version makes more apparent some digital tweaking in terms of "grain" that looks like it was added to some scenes, offering a somewhat grittier appearance at times than in the 1080p version.

Hell Fest 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While the 4K UHD version of Hell Fest offers the same great sounding DTS:X track that the 1080 Blu-ray does, I had a rather odd thing happen with this disc which may just be a "ghost in the machine", but which I'll mention here in case anyone else has it happen (which might indicate an authoring issue). Though the disc defaults to the DTS:X audio option at boot up, when I started playing the film, I was kind of surprised to see "Dolby Surround" on my Oppo display, and even more troublingly, there was no audio whatsoever. I tried stopping the film and restarting it (several times, actually), all with the same result. Even going into the audio menu (where DTS:X was clearly the chosen format) did nothing. Only when I went into the audio menu, and "reselected" the Dolby 2.0 track, then went back to the DTS:X track as a choice did things finally right themselves.

Even before the visual part of the film actually begins, Hell Fest's DTS:X track is a neatly immersive experience, as a glut of voices kind of overlap and hover in an almost dreamlike way. Once the film begins, and especially once the characters get to Hell Fest, things perk up considerably, with the raucous sounds of the carnival almost never ceasing to spill into the surround channels, and with some nicely goofy sound effects like a guillotine offing one character delivering considerable vertical punch as it travels downward. There are some pretty rote uses of both score and LFE accompanying jump cuts to up the angst ante, but even how hackneyed some of these elements are, from a purely sonic perspective they're forceful and impeccably rendered. Dialogue is also delivered cleanly and clearly on this enjoyable if arguably pretty trite sounding track.

Hell Fest 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Thrills and Kills: Making Hell Fest (1080p; 16:28) is a kind of fun EPK with a lot of backstage material, including cell phone video of the cast goofing off.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:09)

Hell Fest 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

One thing I didn't mention about either of The Devil's Carnival films is that they both are ostensibly musicals, though my hunch is very few are going to come away from either film humming any tunes from them. While Hell Fest obviously doesn't go that particular route, I couldn't help but wonder if it had featured a little bit more of a winking attitude, especially since it wants to play on the whole dialectic between "real" and "fake" scares, it might have achieved a little bit more distinction. It's obvious the filmmakers are attempting to create a new franchise villain with The Other. He's seen in one mask in the opening vignette, and another one for the bulk of the film, and toward the end a little cabinet containing a whole host of other Other masks is displayed, but unless you're instinctively frightened by a menacing guy in a blue hoody, The Other may not have horror film legs, as they say. This is an okay enough time killer (slashed or otherwise), but it never really amounts to more than a passable diversion. Technical merits are first rate on this 4K UHD version for those considering a purchase.