--Announcer, Hell Fest
A simple premise can be utilized well enough to keep an approximately 90 minutes movie afloat. Simplicity can even be handled masterfully in some stories, and in horror stories in particular. The first Saw has elements that are very simple, such as keeping the two main characters in a room for most of the runtime. The original Alien is in no way a narratively complicated story despite the positive kind of layers added by later lore. Hell Fest is nowhere near as philosophically charged as Saw or as well-constructed as Alien. With almost the entire plot occurring within a horror theme park as a real murderer is on the hunt, its story is nonetheless somewhat simple, but it has the benefit of its antagonist blending in with the standard proceedings of the park to add drama. For what it is, Hell Fest is overall made rather well, even though it could have reached for much better characterization and done more with some of its themes before the last scene.
Production Values
By far the most successful component of Hell Fest is the imagery, especially as it epistemologically hinders park visitors from initially distinguishing between staged "killings" and the actual murders that occur across the film. As many different horror-themed buildings, costumes, and events are shown, the lighting and camerawork are among the very best aspects. The artificial corpses and paid actors of the park contribute to an atmosphere ripe for a serial killer story. Not a character-driven film in any sense, Hell Fest still features acting that is enough to not lapse into abysmal or hinderingly mediocre delivery. Amy Forsyth specifically is strong as the main character. Becoming more desperate and observant as the story unfolds, her character shows the uncertainty, terror, and resolve that Forsyth needed to muster. On some occasions, she even gets to express acting primarily through facial expressions in the absence of other characters. All of the other characters are secondary or not given as much attention.
Tony Todd, who played the original Candyman slasher villain in the film of the same name, does have a small role as the announcer for a staged fake execution to "open up the gates of hell," adding an iconic presence to a brief scene. The cast largely doing its best or at minimum a middling performance still leaves Hell Fest with several deficiencies in the plot. Why the final girls do not kill the murderer when they have multiple chances to do so near the end is never addressed (they even could have used his own weapons when they have him on the ground), nor is how the villain does not wear gloves. He is instead leaving fingerprints all over various park items and weapons. Perhaps he had some way of mitigating this major risk, but it is never shown or mentioned.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
A group of college students attends a traveling horror theme park on Halloween, with one of them becoming an inadvertent witness to an actual murder that is dismissed as once of the park performances by several of the visitors before the deed is actually done. From this point on, the masked killer targets the witness and her friends, who become increasingly troubled by the difficulty in distinguishing the stalker's actions from the behaviors of costumed park employees who are supposed to frighten attendees or add to the atmosphere. He becomes more and more aggressive as the victims multiply.
Intellectual Content
There are two things that give layers to Hell Fest beyond the setting and basic plot/characters: the way that it could be very difficult to identify an actual murder spree in a theme park like the titular Hell Fest, and the last few moments of the film, where the murderer is shown to have an affectionate relationship with his young daughter. Up until the very last moments, it seems as if the killer might be about to end the life of a girl in her own home, only for her to get up and address the figure as her father. He hands her a stuffed toy from the theme park. A collection of masks, implied to be from other kills, were seen right before this, but he is presented as being a kind, warm father. That this comes so late in the movie and that there is no foreshadowing for this makes it very sudden and subtle indeed. Even as a better film could have integrated this and the epistemology of other minds into the overall story more directly and thoroughly, it makes for an ending that changes the information the audience has about the villain very effectively. Just because someone seems "normal" or morally stable does not mean that he or she is not a monster plotting for the right circumtances to act like a beast.
Conclusion
Hell Fest does not have to be the most unique or brutal slasher film in order to be competent in its execution. Beyond the kills themselves, the highlight is certainly how the killer is able to make the most of the setting of a Halloween theme park with all of its macabre props and imaginative exhibits. The theme of how an otherwise "normal" (there is no such thing as normal, but here I mean normal as compared to the arbitrary behaviors of American society) person could willingly, annually engage in murder makes the final minutes the deepest of the entire movie, but before then, the strong execution and aesthetic style give Hell Fest something to hold it up throughout the general runtime. It is not the most violent, narratively complex, philosophically explicit, or most artistically innovative horror movie, and it does not have to be.
Content:
1. Violence: The camera does not have to linger on the more graphic deaths to briefly show things like a person's skull being caved in or a person being decapitated. Stabbings and blood are shown onscreen for longer.
2. Profanity: Words like "fuck," "shit," "damn," and "bitches" are used.
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