The
Hell Gang is sort of like the Scooby Mystery Team, but with hazing and
dumbassery. Basically, they send out prospective initiates into reportedly
haunted sites with a video camera and then try to scare the half-wits out of
them. Talk about bad karma. As you might guess, they have picked the worst
possible house for their latest escapade. This time could very well be the last
time in Johnny Martin’s Delirium (trailer here), which opens today in Los Angeles.
Eddie
is the Hell Gang’s latest victim—and he really will be a victim, because these
geniuses picked the notorious Brandt mansion, the scene of your basic thirteen
children family massacre. After the poor sap has been gone for a suspiciously
long time, the Hell Gangers reluctantly go in after him, immediate causing them
to realize what jerks they were for not even giving him a flashlight.
Of
course, the only trace of Eddie is his camera, which is loaded with rather
unsettling footage. Yet, they still act like the game is still on. Frankly,
these kids need a thesaurus, because they use the word “creepy” about a
thousand times while tramping through the weirdly immaculate Brandt House.
Okay,
so it is pretty creepy. The Brandt house and its ghoulish Late Nineteenth
Century American bric-a-brac bring quite a bit of atmosphere to the table. It
is certainly an evocative location (the historic Dunsmuir-Hellman Estate, also
seen in the original Phantasm) and
David Stragmeister’s mostly non-found footage cinematography is quite eerie.
Frankly, Martin does a pretty nice job directing Hell Gang’s Hell Night, but
the screenplay is just too standard issue. We have been here before and seen it
done better (like the original Grave Encounters). The blandly interchangeable and thoroughly unlikable cast of
characters does not help much either. Only Ryan Pinkston has anything remotely
distinguishable going on as the comparatively more reflective Keith.
There
is just no hook here. A pack of obnoxious kids enters a haunted house and have
their heads handed to them by an evil entity. Ho-hum. Still, Martin shows some
consistent skill. Delirium could be
considered a step up from Hangman, if
anyone notices it. Only recommended for horror fans desperate for a fix, Delirium opens today (1/26) in Los
Angeles, at the Arena CineLounge.
