By Forris Day Jr.
“Back From Hell” is appropriately titled. After watching it I felt like I had just gotten back from Hell. I want to be fair but this is a terrible movie. It has a very weak story and the whole thing is just full of cheap scares that become so incredibly tiresome. Loud noises, flashes of light, people sneaking up on the others, you know what I’m talking about. It became such a distraction at points that I started feeling angry with the filmmakers. I get it, but I’m not 5 years old. Sure you might startle me a couple times but then let’s move on. Oh, no story here, I see…then I guess we better stick with the cheap scares. Really that is what this flick amounted to. I know filmmaking is tough and people do not appreciate the work that goes into them but at some point you have to get over yourself and think about the audience. If you make a film that is aimed at adults, treat them as such.
OK I’m off my soapbox. “Back from Hell” is the story of six friends who decide to spend the weekend in an old monastery that of course involves a long walk to get to once they park their car. You get the usual whiney character saying “This is a bad idea” “We should turn around” “Why is this place so far in the woods?” because it is indeed a bad idea, they SHOULD turn around and it is weird that it is so far in the woods. You also get the pal who insists it will be fun and tells nervous character to relax. Yes we’ve seen this set-up a hundred times. They naturally continue along so the weak story can continue also.
Once at the monastery they meet the creepy priest who looks after the place. We get the feeling right of the bat that he knows something but isn’t sharing the info. The next logical choice is to totally ignore his weirdness. We soon learn that the place is haunted. That night the people start hearing noises and walk around the place with their night vision video camera when …AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!…we hear a loud noise, then they run to see what it is and then AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!! the camera almost falls to the ground and then we go looking for the people who got separated when all of the sudden… AAAAAHHHHHH!!! we hear a loud noise again. I haven’t been that scared since I saw my first Bigfoot movie when I was 7 years old. That is sarcasm by the way.
Seriously I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this movie to you. I know we are all not Einsteins but this movie treats the viewer as if they had no intelligence at all. Save your dough for some other flick and pass this one up. You will thank me later.
Rating: 2/10 – “You don’t have to come back from Hell if you never go there in the first place”
