(1.5 / 4)
Hell Fest’s refusal to stray from the tired slasher formula and failure to adequately build suspense keeps a promising premise from being anything more than mildly forgettable Halloween-themed fun.
With October just around the corner, what better way to get ready than with a high-concept slasher set during Halloween. After The Nun proved to not quite scratch that horror itch, I was hoping that Hell Fest might bring horror fans some adequate scares. Despite the bad omens of Hell Fest’s director Gregory Plotkin being behind the lacklustre finale to The Paranormal Activity series and the lack of reviews covering the film, I was still holding out hope that the premise might be able to shake up the notoriously formulaic slasher genre. Unfortunately, the film’s tagline of “It’s fun going in. It’s hell getting out” proves to be prophetic, as this tale succumbs to almost every horror cliché in the book, resulting in a forgettable experience.