Hellhole (1985)
4/10
A great mess
18 August 2021
Warning: Spoilers
"People always ask me if it's difficult for me at my age to keep up with trends. What they don't understand is that I'm not older today. I was already older before," said Samuel Arkoff, formerly of American-International Pictures and now the head of Arkoff International Pictures. After selling AIP to Filmways and seeing them pretty much immediately screw it up, he started making the kinds of movies he made all along like Q The Winged Serpent, The Final Terror and this film.

Susan's (Judy Landers) mom gets killed and she forgets who she is after the murderer pushes her through a window, which means she gets sent to the Hellhole, which does not sound like the kind of hospital that someone goes to when they're mentally ill, but who are we to place out 2021 values on to an exploitation movie from 1985?

Actually, it's the Ashland Sanitarium for Women and the killer - Silk (Ray Sharkey) - now works there, watching over Susan in case she gets her memory back. He's not the worst maniac in this movie. That would be Dr. Fletcher (Mary Woronov forever!), who loves performing lobotomy experiments.

Talk about a cast! This has Marjoe Gortner, Edy Williams, Robert Z'Dar, Frogs star Lynn Borden, Mighty Joe Young actress Terry Moore, Carol Ita White from Savage Streets and Dyanne Thorne in it and you know, that's way more star power than several movies usually get. Aaron Butler, who was one of the writers of this, also wrote Chained Heat, so that should tell you what you're getting into.

Pierre De Moro only made two other movies, Savannah Smiles and Christmas Mountain, and this feels like the kind of work made by a man who is sick of making children and families happy.
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