Please, don't ask me what this movie's about, 'cause I've seen it a couple of times now, and I'm still not sure. I know it's about strange goings-on in a tourist-attraction ghost town called Hellgate. And there's this blue crystal that can raise the dead (kinda), make the living swell up and burst, and shoot a blue beam that makes things 'splode real good. And there's a motorcycle gang in the 'fifties who kidnap a girl from Hellgate, take her up there, and end up killing her after her dad(? I think.) attacks them with his awesome axe- and knife-throwing skills. And there's a group of modern-day teens (well, modern for 1989, anyway) who get mixed up in the whole mess, 'cause the dead girl, Josie, likes to seduce random men by wandering in the road playing Phantom Hitchhiker. But no one involved in this film seems to know how all these pieces fit together, so there's no way the poor, defenseless viewer is gonna make heads or tails of it.
But a confusing plot, terrible dialog, and crappy acting are the least of this movie's crimes. The worst offense is the casting of Ron Palillo (TV's Horschak, from Welcome Back, Kotter) as a leading man. Who is apparently irresistibly attractive to women. And has a gorgeous, but insanely jealous and possessive girlfriend. With whom he has a sex scene where we see nearly every possible nude-Horschak camera angle with the exception of a full-frontal. (And it's a good thing they don't go there; I like my eyes, and it'd be a shame if I had to claw them out in horror at the memory.)
But a confusing plot, terrible dialog, and crappy acting are the least of this movie's crimes. The worst offense is the casting of Ron Palillo (TV's Horschak, from Welcome Back, Kotter) as a leading man. Who is apparently irresistibly attractive to women. And has a gorgeous, but insanely jealous and possessive girlfriend. With whom he has a sex scene where we see nearly every possible nude-Horschak camera angle with the exception of a full-frontal. (And it's a good thing they don't go there; I like my eyes, and it'd be a shame if I had to claw them out in horror at the memory.)