Hell's Gate
Italy
1989. Director: Humphrey Humbert (Umberto Lenzi)
Cast: Barbara Cupisti, Pietro Genuardi, Giacomo Rossi Stuart
Aka: Le Porte dell'Inferno
More stuff from the reckless mind of Humphrey
Humbert (or, as you may know him better, Umberto Lenzi). This time in
the shape of an obscure but classically structured horror film starring
everybody's brown-eyed girl Barbara Cupisti (also in Dellamorte
Dellamore) and Giacomo Rossi Stuart as two of seven geologists
doing some job in a huge underground cave under a damned church (something
to do with an isolation experiment). Subsequently one of them disappears
and while trying to find him they all get lost in the labyrinths and
caverns. Eventually a nosy journalist stumbles across a huge crypt with
strange Latin inscriptions on the wall. Of course she must read it and
we all know what happens when you read out loud strange inscriptions.
This one reads that the crypt once belonged to a monastery of black
monks which was destroyed in a fire some 700 years ago. The monks were
executed but swore to return to life if only seven heretics died for
them. Now, and it's here where the fun starts, the geologists turn out
to be, guess what, seven "heretics" (jews, protestants etc).
The plot may be a little too wacky and in disposition it resembles the kind of predictable slasher films they cranked out in the early '80s, minus the nudity. To his credit, Umberto Lenzi knows his limits (except when he's making cannibal movies) so instead of taking it too seriously he just delivers the expected. Which means creative death scenes (every victim is stabbed seven times except for the guy who is eaten by seven spiders), explosions and burning crosses. Then the black monks finally enters in all their ragged glory and it turns out that the leader of the monks is played by Paul Muller who must have been in every damn Italian horror film made during the period (he was also in Lenzi's The House of Witchcraft).
I have always prefered Lenzi over many of his colleagues and I have no intention to apologize for that. In my book Umberto rules in whatever genre. Hell's Gate may not be his finest moment, though. It's damn cheap looking and the acting is rather dorky (or maybe they didn't read the script beforehand). The film also lacks some personal touch maybe, but it's also atmospheric and gory enough to appeal to all those who (like me) persists to watch all the American direct-to-video slashers which overflows our video market. Set your expectations in that direction and it's an okey movie, though not much more.
© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.