Film Review: Hell Town

Hell Town is a strange and utterly delightful horror comedy, in which Debbie Rochon as herself plays the host of a late-night television program, Twisted Classic Television, which has uncovered episodes of a television series titled Hell Town. She tells us that the first and third seasons of the series were completely destroyed in a fire, and that only three episodes from the second season were found in a coffin. “They wiped off all the decomposition, blood and gore, to digitally remaster it for your pleasure tonight,” she says. Wonderful! What a great way to set the tone, to let us know this is going to be a fun ride, and not to take it all seriously. She then plays for us those three episodes. So the film is like watching late-night horror comedy, through without any commercial interruptions during each episode (there are ads between episodes, however, but more on that in a bit).

The show itself is an over-the-top soap opera with murders, mystery, accusations, secrets, inheritances, a coma, and a flirtatious and creepy nurse. It’s a great move to drop the viewer into the middle of the series, because of course that’s how you’d feel if you started watching a soap opera. And as I imagine is the case with real soap operas, it’s easy to get sucked into the absurd story of Hell Town. Though for what was an ongoing series, the show sure does dispatch with a lot of characters in a short period of time. The story centers on a mysterious villain known as The Letter Jacket Killer, who seems to be killing everyone that Trish has slept with. Trish is kind of a demented, slutty Marcia Brady. Trish and her siblings are all eager for their father’s inheritance (though their father is still quite alive).

The cast does a great job, and it’s not the easiest of feats; after all, in the case of the show, they’re playing strange characters, but in the sense of the overall film, they’re playing actors who are playing characters. And even though the show is an over-the-top soap opera, they can’t oversell the jokes without running into the trouble of having it seem that the characters are in on the humor, which would ruin it. Though of course the actors the cast members are playing might be in on the joke. Anyway, they really do a wonderful job with the material. Debbie Rochon appears between episodes. And strangely, after the first episode, we see the trailer for Model Hunger (which Rochon directed). (I wonder if those actors got paid again, as bits of their performances are now in this movie as well.) After the second episode, Rochon appears in a fake ad.

There are a lot of nice touches to this film. Each episode opens with a narrator introducing a montage, “Previously on Hell Town…” In one of the snippets, a character exclaims: “Mom’s in a coma! Somebody splash water on her to wake her up!” Lines like that kept me laughing aloud through the film. I also like that early on we see a “Dead End” sign as a sort of warning, and then later a “No Outlet” sign. And I like that the television credits are basically the film credits; that is, the directors of Hell Town the movie are listed as the directors of the episodes of Hell Town the series. Also, the score is perfectly fitting for this film (though at time it does drift into Raiders Of The Lost Ark territory).

Of course, the idea that two complete seasons and much of another season of a television show could be lost in a fire is absurd. After all, this is obviously supposed to be a fairly recent show. But still, I would love to see more of it. At the end of the film, Debbie Rochon teases us with word of another series discovered while searching for the rest of the second season of this one. So, who knows?

Hell Town was directed by  Steve Balderson and Elizabeth Spear, and was made available on video on demand and digital HD on August 23, 2016.

DVD Review: Miraculous: Tales Of Ladybug & Cat Noir: Spots On!

Miraculous: Tales Of Ladybug & Cat Noir is a rather silly children’s animated series about two teenagers who have secret identities as superheroes. When trouble arises in Paris, Marinette and Adrien become Ladybug and Cat Noir, helped by their personal odd, big-headed floating creatures.  And once an episode, Ladybug calls for her Lucky Charms (though never with an Irish accent). The series has a very artificial look to it, and there are moments that have the feel of a video game. Still, it does have a certain amount of charm, a certain amount of humor. In the spring, Shout! Factory released a DVD containing the first seven episodes. Now they are following it up with Miraculous: Tales Of Ladybug & Cat Noir: Spots On!, containing six new episodes, as well as some bonus material.

There is a mysterious villain who dwells in one room and is surrounded by butterflies, and in each episode he gains control of a character in an effort to do battle with Ladybug and Cat Noir. In “The Evillustrator,” when sending a pet butterfly out to Nathan, he says, “Draw him into our evil web.” Villains who acknowledge they are villains are generally less interesting than those who believe they’re right. Also, he keeps using the word “miraculous” as a noun, which is extremely irritating (particularly when he makes it plural – “miraculouses”). And it’s unclear why this guy is so interested in two teenagers, though perhaps that is explained in an earlier episode.

The transformations from teenagers to superheroes are kind of goofy. It’s like the characters momentarily step into some kind of alternate reality, a reality dominated by bright flashes of color, a reality designed by an advertising agency or by graphics people at MTV Junior or something. And characters use obnoxious terms like “BFF” and “bestie.” But, as I mentioned, there are some funny moments. I like the giant high-heel shoe stomping after Chloe in “The Evillustrator.” And in “Horrificator,” the school principal is named Damocles, a cute touch. And in that episode, Chloe, not understanding horror film realities, says, “Why would we stay with a group when we could just hide out on our own?” That’s kind of wonderful. There is also some humor in the fact that Marinette has a crush on Adrien, while Adrien has a crush on Ladybug. There are some amusing film references as well. In “Rogercop,” the villain gains control of Sabrina’s father and turns him into a sort of evil RoboCop. And at least two of the episodes contain nods to a famous moment in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man.

The episode “Darkblade” contains one of the series’ most delightful characters, a man who lost an election to Chloe’s father and is now controlled by that weird villain and is bent on taking control of France. “Be gone now, pestilent pain in the neck,” he says to another character. Chloe has learned a thing or two about running a political campaign from her father: “The secret to winning in politics is ruining your opponent’s reputation.” But perhaps my favorite episode is “The Mime,” in which a devious understudy named Chris plots to steal a role from the father of one of Marinette’s friends. The father is turned into an evil mime, which leads to several funny moments.

Special Features

The DVD contains approximately seven minutes of animatics from all six episodes. The package contains a small comic book of “The Evillustrator.” By the way, the DVD gives you the option of watching the episodes in English or French, and the French versions contains optional English subtitles.

Miraculous: Tales Of Ladybug & Cat Noir: Spots On! is scheduled to be released on DVD on August 30, 2016 through Shout! Factory.