By Geno McGahee
I am a huge fan of no-budget/micro-budget horror movies. When a filmmaker steps up and makes a film without a budget, typically with their friends, and with less than great equipment, there is usually plenty of heart involved and a story that they feel they need to tell. When I began watching the 1993 horror movie “HELLSPAWN,” I immediately felt a level of optimism. It had that great no-budget look, but sadly, the writing, story, and everything else was about as terrible as it could get.
John Polonia a filmmaker that was known for complete crap like SPLATTER FARM and THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED, wrote and directed HELLSPAWN. Unfortunately, Polonia would die at 39, but he and his twin brother, Mark, made over 40 films. I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but I need to give an honest review of HELLSPAWN.
An incredibly terrible actress starts us off as she gives birth to the Hellspawn. The mutant baby kills everyone in the delivery room and takes off into the woods. Mick and Jack get a call from their cousin Frank and agree to housesit, but nearby is the monster that they’ll have to contend with.
In a bar, that looks remarkably like the inside of a house, they hear of a monster that is terrorizing the community. They laugh it off but soon the monster lets his presence be known. Strangely, the monster is ferocious but he also has a soft side where he places flowers at his mother’s grave and breaks down crying from time to time. The character is so underdeveloped that it’s difficult to figure out what makes him tick. He kills, he decides not to kill…who knows why. Only the monster does.
One of the highlights was when one of the characters snuck up and punched the monster in the back of the head. That was pretty funny. It’s not every day that a monster gets a donkey punch. Is it still a donkey punch if they are not having sex with the monster? For the sake of argument, let’s just say that they were plowing the monster from behind in one of the deleted scenes.
HELLSPAWN is terribly written, acted, and shot. The audio is uneven and has this terrible hiss throughout. This film is bad by bad standards and despite the monster being kind of funny looking, there is no fun factor. It’s difficult to make it through this mess. The lead characters are terrible and the dialogue goes nowhere. It’s basically the two joking around with each other until the monster shows up.
As much as I enjoy this sort of film, HELLSPAWN just misses the mark at every turn. The Polonia brothers are known for making a lot of films but it’s quantity over quality. I’m still in search of a movie that they’ve made that I enjoyed. I almost shut this one off when I found out who was responsible for it, but I gave it a chance anyway and went in with an open mind. After 90 minutes, I thought: “Yep, this one sucked too.” At least it has that one highlight of the monster getting a donkey punch. If you like donkey punches, you may like this.
Eat this donkey punch asshole.
Rating: 2/10