[miketardis]

HELLGATE (1989)
Directed by William A. Levey. Stars Ron Palillo, Abigail Wolcott, Petrea Curran, Joanne Warde, Evan J. Klisser, Carel Trichardt. Despite an exploding goldfish, a face-chomping mutant turtle, zombies, bikers, a ‘50s diner, topless women, a 19th-century ghost town, can-can dancers, finger-chopping, a hand-sized crystal that shoots lasers, and Horshak’s ass, HELLGATE somehow still manages to be a stupid and boring horror movie. Four “youths” (including WELCOME BACK, KOTTER star Palillo, who was forty) investigate some mysterious goings-on at Hellgate, a tourist-trap ghost town where Matt (Palillo) encountered a gorgeous nympho (Wolcott) and her father, Lucas (Trichardt), a creepy Gomez-Addams-looking dude who blew up Matt’s buddy Chuck’s (Klisser) ski with his laser. Could Wolcott be the legendary Hellgate Hitchhiker, the subject of local folklore, who was abducted by a biker gang 35 years earlier and taken to Hellgate, where a strange crystal found buried in a mine turned everyone into zombies? I think that’s how the legend goes. Little about HELLGATE makes any sense, including the alleged comic relief, which appears to be intentional, but is so unfunny and out of place that who knows? Levey throws in just about every wayward plot development and horror cliché he can think of, deluging the viewer in tamely produced random mayhem. You won’t be frightened, but you may be amused at the cheap outdoor set built to represent a combo diner/gas station. Palillo also appeared in Levey’s COMMITTED and SKATETOWN, U.S.A.