The Devil Wears Cut-Offs

The unfortunately low-budgeted Hell’s Highway (2002) begins with a sexy-yet-evil hitchhiker chick thumbing a ride on a hellishly hot Arizona highway that’s paved with wrongness. This is indicated by pointy cactus and various crooked crosses made out of bunk bed slats.

A carload of festive guys ’n gals stop to pick up the hitchin’ vixen, unaware that she just ate the brains of the last person who gave her a lift. Noting her distinct evilness (warped conversation, a brandished gun pointed towards uneaten brains), the travelers dump the chick on the side of the road. So how the double heck did she end up miles down the road later — in front of the car she was voted out of?

Through a series of plot-stalling events, the hitchhiker is killed. Several times. A minor inconvenience, she keeps coming back despite the fact her high-riding cut-off-encased booty has been dragged behind a car, stabbed, shoveled and chainsawed. Hats off for the scene where her head makes like a Gallagher watermelon when backed over by a car.

The evil chick is cute, but not particularly convincing as an unholy b*tch demon hell bent on road rage revenge. Some topless action, a smattering of gutter talk, a nice cameo by porn, uh, giant Ron Jeremy, and gore slung high and low. A solid return on your horror video investment dollar.

P.S. Hopefully you won’t confuse this Hell’s Highway with 1932’s Hell’s Highway. That one features chain gang prisoners and rioting. As far as I can tell, there are no unkillable demon chicks or porn stars in that one. Be cool if there were.

French Sex Vampires

If you’re a criminal on the run and looking for a place to hide, a castle full of naked vampire chicks that have blood-drinking sex parties might be a suitable choice. Such is the plot of the French R-rated horror movie, Fascination (1979), which stars Brigitte Lahaie, a legitimate porn star. She earned her cred the hard way. Um, no pun intended.

It’s 1905 and two high-steppin’ Paris gals go shopping, lock lips and stop by the local slaughterhouse to drink ox blood from glasses with pinky extended. They claim to have severe anemia. All vampires do, I’d reckon. Eventually tiring of cow ketchup, they move up to people, specifically men. This creates a convenient dinner solution when a gold-coin carrying thief running from other thieves who want the gold coins seeks refuge in the ladies’ porn palace.

While hiding his hide, he bares his hide with a little horizontal romance action with one of the gals. Good way to pass the time before the arrival of the marchioness (a snooty woman with the paper rank of a marquess) and her “servants.” When they get to the castle they have a party with the criminal being the only guy, bobbing up and down in a sea of boobies.

The vamps want his blood, but one of the gals, who finds him attractive, helps him escape before this becomes a draining experience. What to do but to quench their eternal thirst by sucking the joy juice out of one of the party girls. How b*tchy.

The criminal finally gets a taste of justice when he gets shot by the very same gal who had a weekend crush on him, but changed her mind at the last minute and hooks up with the marchioness. If you know girls like that, run away.

As mentioned a bunch of words ago, Brigitte Lahaie stars as one of the lesbian vampires. While there is copious amounts of front to back/head to toe nudity, nothing explicit is shown in the ways of well-lit nature. For all I know they could’ve been faking those sex scenes. Bummer.

Blubbering: The Horror of Whales

Even though it’s universally considered to be an American literature classic, the 1851 Herman Melville novel Moby Dick (or The Whale) was in fact the first “nature strikes back” horror story.

You had the maniacal, revenge-seeking Captain Ahab, the original slasher (except he wielded a harpoon and not a hockey mask and a machete), relentlessly pursing Moby Dick (a name used by more than one male porn star), a gigantic whale that wrecked Ahab’s Sea-doo™ and bit the crazy captain’s leg clean off. (Reports are sketchy as to whether it was his right or left leg. Maybe it was both.)

Just like Victor Frankenstein psychotically tracking his creationist monster through the Black Sea and meeting up in the Arctic Circle for the ultimate pay-per-view, both stories did not conclude well for Ahab and Victor.

So the timeless horror classic is headed for the Imax™ screen in the form of In The Heart of the Sea (releasing December 11, 2015), a movie telling the story that inspired Moby Dick and features Thor (Chris Hemsworth) himself, trading in his Mjölnir (or “hammer”) for a whaler’s harpoon. Not really a spoiler, we kinda already know how this is gonna end up – humans will be recycled as whale poo.

Here’s the plot: “In 1820, crewmen aboard the New England vessel Essex face a harrowing battle for survival when a whale of mammoth size and strength attacks with force, crippling their ship and leaving them adrift in the ocean. Pushed to their limits and facing storms, starvation, panic and despair, the survivors must resort to the unthinkable to stay alive.”

One can only imagine what the “resorting to the unthinkable” stuff is to stay alive. If it’s anything like Free Willy 3: Packed In Spring Water, I think we all know the gory conclusion.

Hell’s Log Ride

The Ferryman (birth name Charon) is that scary dude from Greek mythology who runs the canoe service that takes you across the river Styx, right into downtown Hell. But no one rides for free, so if you don’t have any cash or a debit card to pay him, you’re doomed to loiter on the shores of Acheron for 100 years. Sadness abounds.

So the Ferryman has come to collect on this fat old guy who doesn’t want to go to Hell. But F-Man has this cool ability to move into other bodies, which, as you can imagine, really f’s things up for everyone else.

A Tahiti-bound sailboat carrying three couples detours right into some evil fog, responding to an S.O.S. signal where they find an eerie fishing boat with one person on it. They bring the sole surviving fat guy aboard and the fun commences as his soul, with barely an explanation how, can enter the body of any male or female. When he goes into a chick, he gets to touch that fuzzy private area.

To accomplish this he first has to stab the body he intends to occupy with a magical dagger. The wounds heal miraculously fast…WITHOUT A BAND-AID™! Right there that would’ve been my signal to abandon ship. But as he bounces around each person, the madness, violence and blood-distributing gets insanely intense. Warning: If you like dogs, DO NOT watch the dog scene. If you’re more of a cat person, then go right ahead.

Somehow it’s figured out that the fat guy’s soul is doing all the wife-swapping and in a genius maneuver, gets the tables turned on him big time. When the Ferryman comes to claim his lard-y essence, he shows up looking like a very wet Freddy Krueger, but with a sea cloak instead of a color-coordinated red and green sweater.

The Ferryman (2005) features LOTS of screaming and hemoglobin and not much else. The ending, though, will make you smile as though you just swapped bodies with a porn star.