Hell Fest  ★★★

The 2018 horror film Hell Fest has enough highlights to make it worth the time investment.

In many ways it’s typical slasher fare with a masked psycho targeting a young woman and her ill-fated friends.

But second-time director Gregory Plotkin, who also edited the hit horror film Get Out, lifts the film with visual flair and attention to detail .

The film has five writers, which is never a good sign, but the script benefits greatly for setting the story in a horror theme park.

There are a few of these in actual existence. I recently visited one called Spookers located at an old psychiatric hospital south of Auckland in New Zealand (There is a documentary called Spookers about this park).

The park depicted in Hell Fest is on a much larger scale and augnmented by a music festival. It travels across the country during the halloween season and, if it was real, I’d be there.

The story isn’t that important. A disguised serial killer is using the cover of the theme park to stalk and murder people, usually young women who seem to offend in in some way by claiming he doesn’t look scary enough. The cast is adequate but nobody stands out for mention.

As I said, what lifts the film are the moments of tension, enhanced by good editing, camera angles and music score. I would have prefered a little less lighting of the action, but scenes on a ghost train, in a rest room and in a room filled with white-masked faces are particularly good.

I seem to be stating this a bit lately, but Plotkin’s direction of this film plus his work on Get Out warrants looking out for his next project.