Eh - I just didn't like Exit to Hell as much as a hoped I would. I like the actors involved (Kane Hodder, Tiffany Shepis), but it's just way too faux-grindhousey for my liking. You get a ton of aggressive effects to simulate old scratches/jumps/whatever on the film, and it just doesn't work. I'm not inherently opposed to it, but when little effects draw more attention than the actual story, that's a problem.
The film also manages to feel overly padded yet underdone at the same time. It starts with a little movie-within-a-movie (a gory nurse/zombie thing that if I had to guess was probably an existing short from one of the filmmakers), and then a ten minute story before the credits where a Chris R. looking guy and his buddy botch a gas station robbery. I guess it serves to introduce our main bad guy, Sheriff Sickle (not what they call him, because those two words sound dumb together - but it's still what he'd be), played by Kane Hodder. At any rate, it's nearly 15 minutes into the film before we get introduced to our *actual* main characters. And the film (sans the ending credits) is only an hour and fifteen minutes, so really you only get an hour to tell the whole story. Which ends with a big fat "huh - that's it?" So I don't know, it just doesn't feel well-laid out to me.
The *actual* main characters? A gang of four who rob a strip-club. (So you get some gratuitous nudity.) But their angle is to work at the strip club first, so three of the four have jobs there. The leader is the DJ Travis (Dustin Leighton), and you also have stripper Jenna (Shepis), and the bartender (Taryn Maxximillian Dafoe). Jenna's brother Randy (Owen Conway) rounds out the group. But, things don't go as planned - Randy is kind of a loose cannon and ends up shooting someone who works at the club. Just so we know they're the good kind of criminals we're supposed to like, they all condemn Randy's actions. But Jenna is all "we can't ditch him, he's my brother," so they continue on to go to Mexico (I think). But Randy can't even be trusted to drive in a straight line, because when the other three wake up after a little nap, they are totally lost. They end up in the weird little town where Sheriff Sickle works, and he likes to kidnap, torture, and eventually eat people. Good times!
Also, the strip club they robbed was owned by a Russian gangster. So he's understandably upset and is out to get them as well. That's enough for about an hour, right?
So Exit to Hell just didn't work for me, but it wasn't due to a lack of effort. All of the actors seem to be giving it their all, and the script *tries* to hit the marks when and where it's supposed to. It seems to be going for a True Romance-meets-Rob Zombie vibe, but it's simply out of reach. The crime angle is not all that compelling, and you are never really given any reason to care for the gang. Despite trying (with limited success) to be likable, they are still criminals - it's not like they were double-crossed or abused by the club owner. He just hired them, and then they took his shit. And while the sets and extras look like they could be in a hillbilly Zombie flick, Sickle and company just don't feel all that menacing. It's more like they are trying to be all creepy and gross instead of just letting the creepiness come naturally. Really, it's the main problem with the film - it's just trying too hard. From the quick editing to the music to the camera angles, it's shooting for XTREME! when it doesn't really need to.
The gore is plentiful, but nothing memorable. It gets a little torturey at times (Sickle gets a hold of a couple of them and ties them up in his basement), but nothing too terrible. I didn't get much of a sense of tension either from the film. The potential victims end up in this grey area, where you don't care enough about them to *not* want them to die, but they remain pretty disposable. But you're not really cheering for Sheriff Sickle either - he's not some cool nameless/faceless slasher, but as a character he's not fleshed out enough to make you understand him either. I guess the fact that he's Kane Hodder is supposed to be enough. (And I guess it is - I was rooting for him more than anyone else, for what it's worth. He's not *great* in the film, but has some of the best lines and is fun to watch.)
Overall, Exit to Hell just kind of falls flat. It's trying, which is admirable, but it never connects in any meaningful way.
I would not recommend this film.
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