Welcome to the end of the world.
Or something like that.
To be honest, it’s a bit of a struggle to say what exactly the 1992 film Hellmaster was actually about but I think it definitely had something to do with the end of the world. John Saxon plays Prof. Jones, a sadistic eugenicist who, in the late 60s, developed a drug that he claimed would — I kid you not — “cure homelessness.” Apparently, the drug would make the homeless so strong that they would be able to build a house or something. Anyway, a reporter (David Emge, best known as the helicopter pilot in the original Dawn of the Dead) discovered what Jones was doing and that the drugs were actually turning the homeless into mind-controlled zombies. Jones responded by murdering the reporter’s wife and then vanishing.
Are you following the story so far?
20 years later, the reporter is having nightmares about the homeless so he decides to start hanging out around the Kant Institute for the Gifted. We’re told that the Kant Institute is a college. There only appears to be one professor and a handful of students, the majority of whom appear to be in their early 30s. I’m not really sure what’s being taught at the school. (The only class we see features two white people debating whether or not Malcolm X hated the homeless.) One of the students, Shelley (Amy Raasch), is apparently clairvoyant and she keeps having visions of the school’s chapel bursting into flames.
Meanwhile, there are shots of an old church bus driving down various deserted roads. “Have a nice day” is written across the cross that hangs on the front of the bus. On top of the bus, someone’s painted a smiley face. The bus itself is occupied by four deformed followers of Prof. Jones. Apparently, they’ve spent the last 20 years driving around the country and killing people. One of them is dressed like a nun and carries several hypodermic needles. They come across a stalled motorist and promptly kill him. The man’s daughter (Sarah Barkoff) escapes and flees to the nearby Kant Institute.
It turns out that the bus is also heading to the Kant Institute! Eventually, Prof. Jones pops up and explains that it took God six days to create the world but Jones believes that it will only take him one night to transform the world into Hell. Why does Jones want to do this? That’s not really clear. Actually, it’s not even clear how showing up at the Kant Institute will even help Jones accomplish that goal.
Anyway, the rest of the movie is basically Shelley and the reporter and a handful of friends attempting to not get transformed into zombies by Prof. Jones. This is easier said than done because, as we quickly discover, everyone in this movie is an idiot.
Hellmaster is one of those low-budget horror films that shouldn’t work and yet somehow, it does. Yes, the plot makes absolutely no sense and, with the exception of genre vets Saxon and Emge, the performances are almost all terrible. But no matter! At its best, the film — which is full of dark hallways and deserted roads and twisty camera angles — achieves a dream-like intensity. The zombies, with their hypodermic needles and their joyful savagery, are genuinely creepy and John Saxon is properly menacing as Prof. Jones. It’s a relentless film, one that leaves you feeling as if anyone can die at any time and, when they do die, it’s often in the most macabre ways possible. A crippled student is beaten to death with his own crutch. Another is doused with acid. And you may be asking yourself, “But why was there a big vat of acid just sitting around?” but oddly, it works within the surreal dream logic of the film. It makes no sense and yet, it happens. If anything, the lack of a coherent plot and the low-budget aesthetic help this film create and maintain its nightmarish atmosphere.
For all of its flaws, Hellmaster is a thousand times more effective than you might expect.
On June 27th, 1976, four terrorists hijacked an Air France flight and diverted it to Entebbe Airport in Uganda. With the blessing of dictator Idi Amin and with the help of a deployment of Ugandan soldiers, the terrorists held all of the Israeli passengers hostage while allowing the non-Jewish passengers to leave. The terrorists issued the usual set of demands. The Israelis responded with Operation Thunderbolt, a daring July 4th raid on the airport that led to death of all the terrorists and the rescue of the hostages. Three hostages were killed in the firefight and a fourth — Dora Bloch — was subsequently murdered in a Ugandan hospital by Idi Amin’s secret police. Only one commando — Yonatan Netanyahu — was lost during the raid. His younger brother, Benjamin, would later become Prime Minister of Israel.
Naked women are turning up murdered in Los Angeles. The only clue that the crimes are connected: the baby doll that is left beside each body. Can detectives Louis (Jeff Kober) and Larry (Bobby Di Cicco) solve the case while also dealing with issues in their own private life? Louis’s girlfriend (Melanie Smith) is worried that Louis is becoming obsessed with is work and that he is not willing to commit to their relationship. Larry is upset because he suspects his wife is keeping a secret from him. Their chief (John Saxon) wishes they would just solve the case, especially when the killer targets his own daughter. The problem is that Louis is so driven and prone to violence that he has managed to get himself suspended from the force. Why does that always happen to good cops?
At the turn of the 20th century, the mayor and the business community of Cottonwood Springs, Texas are determined to bring their small town into the modern era. The Mayor (Larry Gates) has even purchased one of those newfangled automobiles that have been taking the country by storm. However, the marshal of Cottonwood Spings, Frank Patch (Richard Widmark), is considered to be an embarrassing relic of the past. Patch has served as marshal for 20 years but now, his old west style of justice is seen as being detrimental to the town’s development. When Patch shoots a drunk in self-defense, the town leaders use it as an excuse to demand Patch’s resignation. When Patch refuses to quit and points out that he knows all of the secrets of what everyone did before they became respectable, the business community responds by bringing in their own gunfighters to kill the old marshal.
Through the Shattered Lens 