Review of Hellborn

Introduction

I have always associated CDA with the more determined film buff. Take your standard DVD release, add memorabilia like posters, film stills, postcards and script books, add some deluxe special edition packaging and a price tag to match, and you have a cinephile`s wet dream. So when finally, Reviewer sent me a couple of CDA titles to review I rubbed my hands with glee. Imagine my considerable surprise when I found that CDA do b-movies as well. In your standard Amaray cases come an action thriller, and this horror movie, Hellborn.

James Bishop is a newly qualified psychiatrist who for his first job accepts a residency at an institution for the mentally unbalanced, better known to horror movie fans as a lunatic asylum. After a sharp introduction to the patients, McCourt, your average creepy head doctor meets him, and initiates him into his own rather warped understanding of criminal psychiatry. Oh hell, the bottom line is that a soul-sucking monster lives downstairs, kept fed by a conspiracy among the creepy asylum staff and chills chill, and blood flows while damsels scream etc. Yawn!

Video

A 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer is given to Hellborn, but it`s hardly worth the effort. The picture suffers from heavy grain at times and looks like a soft and rather dull TV movie. There`s also the shaky camera and out of focus scenes, with occasional overexposure to give that otherworldly feel. Not the most stellar of pictures.

Audio

On the other hand the DD 5.1 track is fairly effective in conveying the necessary creepiness. The standard eerie piano music is clichéd but not out of place. The shocks and scares are adequately reproduced, but the dialogue isn`t always clear and the sound occasionally drops out when the effects get too echoey. The dialogue is risible too.

Features

There is a trailer presented in 1.33:1 and with DD 5.1 sound. There are no subtitles though.

Conclusion

When I try to think of the words to describe my feelings after watching Hellborn, my mind becomes a total void. To call it dismal would be an understatement. It isn`t the worst movie ever made. It isn`t even close to that, as that would be an achievement, and this film achieves absolutely nothing. It`s the kind of horror movie that has been made since the birth of horror movies. Bland, mundane and identikit thrills that follow the same blueprint, the same shocks and surprises and the same twists and turns. The same goddamn clichés from the get go, and I was anticipating dialogue before it happened.

The cast is unexceptional. Bruce Payne plays your average creepy doctor type as McCourt, Porky Pig couldn`t be hammier. Matt Stasi is uniformly bad as James Bishop, a character who is written badly in the first place. In fact Bishop reminds me of a scene from the Bette Midler movie Ruthless People, "This could conceivably be the stupidest man on Earth!" In fact the only reason that I may have watched this film is Tracy Scoggins, soap opera queen. In the Colbys she made more than an impression during my tender teen years, and for more reason than her manga eyes. (They are unfeasibly large) However her two more impressive attributes remain behind a white lab coat for the duration, and instead she wields an impenetrable accent.

Hellborn is a poorly written waste of time and money. I`ve given it one mark because it made me laugh, a little. It wasn`t supposed to, but bad acting does that. Believe me, you have seen this film before, you do not need to see yet another incarnation. Avoid like the plague.