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Hellgate

Today's movie is Hellgate - and holy shit is it boring. Running just about 1.5 hours, the pacing makes it feel like you're slogging through mud for more like 5 or 10 hours. There are more things to be frightened of in a Disney movie than there are in this movie.

The Gist: Jeff (Cary Elwes) loses his family in a car accident which may or may not be his fault. Post accident (a la The Dead Zone) he can "see dead people" and hear them (alternately) asking for help and threatening to destroy him - if one can call zombie grunts any type of actual threat. During his recovery, he falls for his sexy Asian nurse. Throw in some spiritualism and we learn that his soul is trapped in the spirit world - yada yada yada. Complicated rituals and spooky pronouncements follow.

When Jeff crosses over to the spirit world to collect his missing soul, his dead, mangled wife tells him that he should go back and have a life with the sexy nurse who would do anything for him. I don't want to get too casually racist on you here, but I'm 98% certain that the underlying message of this movie is that one Asian wife is as good as another. Heck, if you lose one and another doesn't fall directly into your lap, you could just order one up off the internet, right? I'm the last woman to get all feministy, but really - the messaging in this movie is pretty solidly misogynistic.

Will you be surprised to note that it was written and directed by a white dude? The thing to take away from this movie is really that white people shouldn't try to make movies concerning Eastern religion and spirituality. Oh yeah and that women are interchangeable.

The plot being completely idiotic is almost less annoying than the ways in which this cheap movie cuts corners on things that are just stupid (like painfully obvious fake tattoos), in order to spend more money on things they just wasted (like hiring William Hurt).

To simulate a car accident, they simply pelted the actors in pieces of broken glass and then slowed down the footage for this truly unconvincing slow motion sequence.

The creepy old Asian lady who know things about stuff? She is very obviously not that old. The white, Bride of Frankenstein stripes in her hair are OBVIOUSLY painted ON her hair. They eventually just vanish and are replaced with platinum blonde, clip in hair extensions in a totally different location.

The very secret, tropical island they head off to for the movie's climax? Yeah, it's pretty clearly some sort of resort hotel as the "river" they pass is a very chlorinated pool with a blue liner.

And seriously. The tattoo they applied down Willam Hurt's neck is shiny and wrinkled, like the temporary tattoo that it is. Sideways of that, what a waste, casting him in such a poorly written, piece of crap movie.

You can watch the trailer here because I've honestly got nothing else to write on this one.
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