OK, I gave this 3 stars purely based on the fact that I stayed with it to the end. Like the horrifying car crash you can not look away from this movie, as bad as it is, has that element. You just have to find out what the hell's going on. The story doesn't make sense at all. Nothing seems to mesh, none of the elements come together and you sit there purely to say "Oh Hellinger? Yeah I saw that" hoping someone will pin a medal on your chest. The movie is lit so badly that if, like me, you watch it on your PC all you can see is your own stunned reflection looking right back at you. The sound is disjointed, the dialogue is none existent and the characters don't seem to fit with anything. Be aware, there is a brutal rape around the mid point which, again, seems to have no bearing on anything. Rape is a disgusting thing and I'm not sure what the director's message was in showing this but trust me, over and above the bad acting, the bad props and the total meaningless of the whole scene the rape thing was brutal. I wont even try and let you into the plot as I have no idea what it was. Pluck out your own eyes before viewing should be the subtitle of this thing.
13 Reviews
What on Earth??!!
anxietyresister25 August 2009
It's hard to convey your feelings in written form over the Internet. You could use a hundred different words and still end up falling short of what you're trying to tell the reader. What I'm getting at is, I can in no way accurately describe the.. acting in the first 5 minutes. You could run through every synonym in every language in the world and still come nowhere near the awfulness of this scene. It's between a man and a little girl, and you couldn't find two worst performers if you tried. Thankfully, the bloke is quickly disposed of, and the kid grows up into the main character of the film.. actually, scratch the "Thankfully" part, because everyone else is almost as bad.
My God, this is a stinker. It lets off such a putrid stench it would even kill the flies and dung-beetles. Hellinger is a guy covered in white make-up who speaks in a stupid voice. He eats his own skin, which is made out of rubber. When he kills people, he lets off blood packs in his hands. Scared yet? I certainly am, when I realise that there are actually people loose in our community who consider it a horror rather than a comedy. I'm not one for unintentional laughs, but there were so many clunkers here I was rolling on the floor begging for mercy. A lot of them involving the heroine's bearded cousin, who sports possibly the most ridiculous OTT tattoo of a dragon known to man. It covers the whole of his body up to his neck, and is so distracting it is actually more fun to watch than anything else in the picture. Go on, pause when he's taking his shower, and check out the amount of detail in the illustration. AMAZING.
Finally, after the minuscule running time of just over 70 minutes, the movie is over. We can discuss all the highlights, such as Shannah Betz rubbing red food dye over her tits and a nasty chap stabbing a girl in the vagina repeatedly. You people must be really proud of your agents. Especially with the ending, that features the dismembering of a Spitting Image puppet complete with chopped liver. Yes I know it's supposed to be Hellinger, but COME ON. The fact that this isn't the worst film I've seen this year is the most depressing part. Sigh.. 0/10
My God, this is a stinker. It lets off such a putrid stench it would even kill the flies and dung-beetles. Hellinger is a guy covered in white make-up who speaks in a stupid voice. He eats his own skin, which is made out of rubber. When he kills people, he lets off blood packs in his hands. Scared yet? I certainly am, when I realise that there are actually people loose in our community who consider it a horror rather than a comedy. I'm not one for unintentional laughs, but there were so many clunkers here I was rolling on the floor begging for mercy. A lot of them involving the heroine's bearded cousin, who sports possibly the most ridiculous OTT tattoo of a dragon known to man. It covers the whole of his body up to his neck, and is so distracting it is actually more fun to watch than anything else in the picture. Go on, pause when he's taking his shower, and check out the amount of detail in the illustration. AMAZING.
Finally, after the minuscule running time of just over 70 minutes, the movie is over. We can discuss all the highlights, such as Shannah Betz rubbing red food dye over her tits and a nasty chap stabbing a girl in the vagina repeatedly. You people must be really proud of your agents. Especially with the ending, that features the dismembering of a Spitting Image puppet complete with chopped liver. Yes I know it's supposed to be Hellinger, but COME ON. The fact that this isn't the worst film I've seen this year is the most depressing part. Sigh.. 0/10
Another Troma stinker!
BA_Harrison24 November 2008
Hellinger (Wayne Petrucelli), a demonic spirit who looks like he failed to graduate from Cenobite school and talks as though he has severe brain damage, likes to torment a woman named Melissa (Shana Sosin), killing those around her and then boring the poor girl with protracted monologues about the devil and stuff (all delivered in his insufferable trademark drawl).
Melissa's cousin Kendall (Artie Richard) is a tough cop with a serious set of inks and a cool leather coat; he is investigating a murder, but seems to spend more time talking to Melissa's coma-inducing psychiatrist in an attempt to help her with her problems.
Meanwhile, Melissa's boyfriend is out doing very nasty things to women with a knife...
Even by Troma's low, low standards, Hellinger is very poor viewing: the muddled Hellraiser-style storyline is never scary, the dialogue is tedious and uninteresting, the acting atrocious (with Petrucelli taking the prize for worst actor), and the whole cheap-assed production reeks of amateurishness. Hell, the extreme levels of ineptitude displayed by all involved didn't even manage to make me laugh, so the film doesn't even score marks there!
However, narrowly saving this piece of garbage from the shame of receiving a 1/10 are a couple of completely gratuitous sex scenes (just like dwarfs and kung fu, they always make a film better) and a murder scene that manages to shock thanks to the over-the-top manner in which the victim is dispatched: she is brutally punched in the face, repeatedly stabbed between the legs with a knife, eaten out by her attacker (yes, literally eaten out!!!), and then raped. This is all done in the dark, and so isn't necessarily that graphic, but we see enough to get the message: this killer is one very sick puppy!
Melissa's cousin Kendall (Artie Richard) is a tough cop with a serious set of inks and a cool leather coat; he is investigating a murder, but seems to spend more time talking to Melissa's coma-inducing psychiatrist in an attempt to help her with her problems.
Meanwhile, Melissa's boyfriend is out doing very nasty things to women with a knife...
Even by Troma's low, low standards, Hellinger is very poor viewing: the muddled Hellraiser-style storyline is never scary, the dialogue is tedious and uninteresting, the acting atrocious (with Petrucelli taking the prize for worst actor), and the whole cheap-assed production reeks of amateurishness. Hell, the extreme levels of ineptitude displayed by all involved didn't even manage to make me laugh, so the film doesn't even score marks there!
However, narrowly saving this piece of garbage from the shame of receiving a 1/10 are a couple of completely gratuitous sex scenes (just like dwarfs and kung fu, they always make a film better) and a murder scene that manages to shock thanks to the over-the-top manner in which the victim is dispatched: she is brutally punched in the face, repeatedly stabbed between the legs with a knife, eaten out by her attacker (yes, literally eaten out!!!), and then raped. This is all done in the dark, and so isn't necessarily that graphic, but we see enough to get the message: this killer is one very sick puppy!
Crappinger
Bezenby6 January 2016
This is a documentary regarding Pinhead's brother, who was made redundant from the cenobites for having a crap voice and wandered the streets of New York, claiming benefits and doing Uncle Fester impressions for loose change. This is his story.
Which isn't saying much. Basically there's this girl who's scared of Hellinger, and her dad, right, he's given her gip about this and that and taunts her about Hellinger, who then appears behind her dad and rips his eyeballs out. Now Hellinger looks like someone fell into a bucket of light blue paint and is now standing under a spotlight shouting about it. You know how Pinhead was covered in pins and was menacing and had a weird voice? Well Hellinger can't even afford safety pins, looks like a bad actor, and sounds like he's suffered some sort of head injury.
Years after the dad-eyeball pulling incident, and the child is all grown up and still banging on about Hellinger. There's also some religious guys, one of whom is her boyfriend, who seem to have some connection with Dillinger. I wasn't paying that much attention as a lot of the film contains bad actors jawing at each other.
There's also a cop/cousin of the girl trying to get to the bottom of some sort of murder (I can't remember if he solved that one) and he also gets caught up trying to figure out who Hellinger is. I've never been to New York but I'm guessing all the cussing and threatening is basically how they talk to each other there.
There's also a bit where this serial killer steals Hellinger's giro and they all have an awful time trying to get a replacement at the local jobcentre, forcing Hellinger to become homeless.
Which isn't saying much. Basically there's this girl who's scared of Hellinger, and her dad, right, he's given her gip about this and that and taunts her about Hellinger, who then appears behind her dad and rips his eyeballs out. Now Hellinger looks like someone fell into a bucket of light blue paint and is now standing under a spotlight shouting about it. You know how Pinhead was covered in pins and was menacing and had a weird voice? Well Hellinger can't even afford safety pins, looks like a bad actor, and sounds like he's suffered some sort of head injury.
Years after the dad-eyeball pulling incident, and the child is all grown up and still banging on about Hellinger. There's also some religious guys, one of whom is her boyfriend, who seem to have some connection with Dillinger. I wasn't paying that much attention as a lot of the film contains bad actors jawing at each other.
There's also a cop/cousin of the girl trying to get to the bottom of some sort of murder (I can't remember if he solved that one) and he also gets caught up trying to figure out who Hellinger is. I've never been to New York but I'm guessing all the cussing and threatening is basically how they talk to each other there.
There's also a bit where this serial killer steals Hellinger's giro and they all have an awful time trying to get a replacement at the local jobcentre, forcing Hellinger to become homeless.
Zero-budget Hellraiser type movie
gtc8319 March 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Twenty years ago, a young girl is abused by her father. Hellinger, a character like pinhead except without the pins and with a horrible habit of massive overacting, shows up and kills her father. In the present day, the girl is still haunted by memories. There's a televangelist who wants her to attend some event. I have absolutely no idea what this guy is doing in the movie as the two seem to have little if any connection to each other, and he serves no purpose in the story. There's a cop who is apparently the girl's cousin. He's covered in tattoos over every inch of his body and yes, we get to see every inch of his body on more than one occasion. Talk about gross. There's also the girl's psychiatrist, who lives in a small apartment that the film makers rather comically try to pass off as some sort of office. He has a long conversation with the cop, the contents of which are such utter nonsense that it would almost be funny if it wasn't so boring.
So the cop investigates stuff that has little to do with Hellinger, the girl goes out with her boyfriend and Hellinger shows up and kills him, and there's a very brutal rape / murder scene which is shown in graphic detail. The entire plot is explained in the last ten minutes of the movie, and it would have only taken about three minutes if Hellinger didn't talk so damned slow.
I'll give the movie an extra point for getting the lead actress to take her top off, she's quite attractive. And the victim in the rape scene did a very realistic job of acting, so that gets an extra point as well. So that's three total. Otherwise it's just amateurish, with atrocious acting and the dialog sometimes completely drowned out by road noise and the tacky soundtrack. Most of the scenes in this movie are just filler and serve no purpose except to pad out the run time. As far as zero budget trash goes, this isn't quite the bottom of the barrel, but you can see the bottom from here.
So the cop investigates stuff that has little to do with Hellinger, the girl goes out with her boyfriend and Hellinger shows up and kills him, and there's a very brutal rape / murder scene which is shown in graphic detail. The entire plot is explained in the last ten minutes of the movie, and it would have only taken about three minutes if Hellinger didn't talk so damned slow.
I'll give the movie an extra point for getting the lead actress to take her top off, she's quite attractive. And the victim in the rape scene did a very realistic job of acting, so that gets an extra point as well. So that's three total. Otherwise it's just amateurish, with atrocious acting and the dialog sometimes completely drowned out by road noise and the tacky soundtrack. Most of the scenes in this movie are just filler and serve no purpose except to pad out the run time. As far as zero budget trash goes, this isn't quite the bottom of the barrel, but you can see the bottom from here.
TERRIBLE!!!
africe23 August 2019
I give this film a 1 because negative numbers aren't available. Terrible effects and dialogue. But the acting is the WORST!!! The long haired "hero" is lame and an embarrassment to long hairs everywhere. Dude can't act and his dialogue is flat. I'd say the part with the lead actress rubbing "blood" all over her breast is typical but I had to laugh when she was screwing the guy and there was a fuzzy pink distortion in the pubic area when the covers dropped down. Hilarious!!! If you need to blur something.... REMOVE IT FROM THE FILM!!! Don't waste your time
Not important, but fun
almaric18 February 2002
I've already commented on this movie somewhat on the CARNAGE ROAD review. This is by far, Max Cerchi's best movie. It isn't important, not does it contribute to the independent horror movement, but it sure is one imaginative and violent slasher film.
waist of a good idea
thewag77720 January 2005
The start of the movie showed promise. I was expecting a brilliant psychological and theological horror, sort of the Hellraiser. Hellinger's theology was somewhat based on Buddhism. That is impressive for a low budget, gore-mongering, sex laden horror flick. But there were two major problems with this film. 1) That scene where the rapist brutally murdered and raped that woman had nothing to do with the plot and was so disgusting I have spent weeks trying to remove the image from my head, it won't go away. This should have been left out of the movie all together. 2) All that imagination building up a great plot and it fell apart in the end. That is one of the worst endings I have ever seen, but I won't spoil it for you.
I don't say this often, but if you haven't seen this movie, don't! For the love of God don't! It is not worth it due to reason number 1 stated above. I gave this movie 3 stars only because it could have been good. What a waist!!!
I don't say this often, but if you haven't seen this movie, don't! For the love of God don't! It is not worth it due to reason number 1 stated above. I gave this movie 3 stars only because it could have been good. What a waist!!!
HATE IS THE FIRST STEP TO LOVE
nogodnomasters6 May 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Melissa (Shannah Betz, Shana Sosin) has been haunted by the demon Hellinger (Wayne Petrucelli) who is basically Pin Head without the pins. Don't want to get sued on their budget. Hellinger seems to have a things for eyes, apparently the only special effects props that were on sale. Melissa is involved with a cult group. Meanwhile there are some horrible killings going on in town. Her tattoo cousin Kendall (Artie Richard) is investigating them. The acting is fairly sad with some people playing caricatures of stereotypes with trite dialogue. About 2/3 way through the film Kendall gives us an explanation of Hellinger, or you can read Amazon's "plot spoiler" description of the film, which like rancid meat, is tough to spoil.
The film does have some camp value and an extended love/nude scene with Shannah Betz.
Parental Guide: F-bomb, sex, nudity (Shannah Betz, Jessica English)
The film does have some camp value and an extended love/nude scene with Shannah Betz.
Parental Guide: F-bomb, sex, nudity (Shannah Betz, Jessica English)
Cheap and painful to watch "Hellraiser" clone.
HumanoidOfFlesh28 October 2010
An abusive father of Melissa was killed by Hellinger,a bald and white-skinned pseudo-Pinhead.Grown-up Melissa lives in New York and is plagued by nightmares of Hellinger.Her long-haired and tattooed cousin Kendall has been contracted by the police to find out about a series of gruesome murders in which people have been eviscerated."Hellinger" is an amateur horror junk that rips-off highly acclaimed "Hellraiser".Admittedly the acting is decent and the camera work is fine,but the audio sucks and few gory moments are amateurish.Troma's Lloyd Kaufman co-produced this low-budget horror trash.4 out of 10.Be afraid of the wrath of Hellinger.He will tear your soul apart.
hellinger complaint
death-is-me10 October 2006
Warning: Spoilers
this film was the most disgusting film i have ever seen. how you could film someone pretending to be raped is beyond me its sick and i hated it. what if people brought that and was raped in the past, you don't think about how it could affect them, it could lead them to suicide and you'd be the people they would blame. it can really hurt someone and why you would have the audacity to even think about putting that sort of appalling scene in a film is disgraceful. i hope you never make things like this again because i was absolutely disgusted and couldn't be touched thats the way it affected me it was appalling. this truly was the most disgusting thing i have ever seen!
From a Milan to Minsk
jeffkreger24 October 2020
Truly truly truly disappointed
voliveri16 June 2023
I'm really upset that this movie wasn't better, because the antagonist's origin story was really interesting and a lot could have been done with it.
Additionally, one could argue that the true villain of this story escapes justice entirely. The movie ends when you would expect the third act to begin, making the ending unsatisfying. In fact, given that they introduce a new character in the last 15 minutes of the movie, I wonder if funding ran out and they just decided to end it there instead of actually finishing the production?
Shana Betz and Veronica Bero have wonderful chemistry. Betz is especially good. I think the movie would have been far better if the focus were solely on her character, as Betz is more than capable of carrying a film on her own. She exudes charm.
If you like nudity, Betz is topless for a sex scene. The male lead, played by Artie Richard, has an utterly gratuitous love scene with an unnamed character who appears topless. You also see his butt in a shower scene. (He has full body tattoos, so tattoo lovers may really appreciate this.)
Dialogue is not great, story is not great, Richard's character seems irrelevant to the story, sex scenes dragged into soft core territory--which made them feel out of place in a horror movie.
My rule with bad movies is that nudity and/or campy violence has to take up the slack--or that the cast has to have exceptional chemistry and charisma. Betz has the latter, but she's the only one. There is not enough of the first two to offset this movie's negatives.
Wasted potential here, which is a real shame. For such a short movie, it felt like an eternity.
Also: the cover art and title make you think they're going for a Hellraiser rip off, but that's a red herring.
Rating: 3/10
1-3 Don't waste your time 4-6 Good 7-9 Great 10 Outstanding.
Additionally, one could argue that the true villain of this story escapes justice entirely. The movie ends when you would expect the third act to begin, making the ending unsatisfying. In fact, given that they introduce a new character in the last 15 minutes of the movie, I wonder if funding ran out and they just decided to end it there instead of actually finishing the production?
Shana Betz and Veronica Bero have wonderful chemistry. Betz is especially good. I think the movie would have been far better if the focus were solely on her character, as Betz is more than capable of carrying a film on her own. She exudes charm.
If you like nudity, Betz is topless for a sex scene. The male lead, played by Artie Richard, has an utterly gratuitous love scene with an unnamed character who appears topless. You also see his butt in a shower scene. (He has full body tattoos, so tattoo lovers may really appreciate this.)
Dialogue is not great, story is not great, Richard's character seems irrelevant to the story, sex scenes dragged into soft core territory--which made them feel out of place in a horror movie.
My rule with bad movies is that nudity and/or campy violence has to take up the slack--or that the cast has to have exceptional chemistry and charisma. Betz has the latter, but she's the only one. There is not enough of the first two to offset this movie's negatives.
Wasted potential here, which is a real shame. For such a short movie, it felt like an eternity.
Also: the cover art and title make you think they're going for a Hellraiser rip off, but that's a red herring.
Rating: 3/10
1-3 Don't waste your time 4-6 Good 7-9 Great 10 Outstanding.
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