Hellbride

Sure, I wasn't harboring much of any hopes or expectations to this 2007 horror movie titled "Hellbride", as I sat down to watch it for the first time here in 2023. In fact, I had never heard about the movie prior to stumbling upon it by random chance. And with it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to give the movie a chance.

I must say that writer and director Pat Higgins failed to conjure up a script and storyline that had much appeal to my particular preference of horror movie. Sure, "Hellbride" wasn't among the worst of movies that I have ever suffered through, but it just wasn't a particularly interesting movie all together.

The acting performances in "Hellbride" was a bit wobbly and wooden, and it took its toll on the overall enjoyment of the movie. I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list.

Visually then you're not in for anything extraordinary here.

If you enjoy horror movies, then I wouldn't recommend you wasting your time, money or effort on "Hellbride". The best thing about this movie was actually the title.

My rating of "Hellbride" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

This is clearly a low budget flick. There is no proper lighting used and the sound wasn't correct at all times. The editing was rather good but nothing special. But it is a bit of a weird flick to review.

You can find it easily under the horror department in your local shop but there isn't that much of red stuff in it. There's a lot of blah blah going on and a lot of acting isn't what it should be. Some really exaggerate in their performance, others weren't believable. But this time it's the girls that made this flick. Rebecca Herod was really believable. Sadly she never made it in the scene, she's still performing but in short flicks. The bad girl here is Eleanor James. She really has the abilities to move further in the scene but is mostly cast for her face.

It wasn't really my cup of tea Hellbride because it really took a while before the bride really went to hell. But I kept watching it so there must be something that you want to know how it is going to be solved. The effects were okay for a low budget, they knew how to hide away for cheap effects with the use of the camera. A bit low on everything...

Gore 1/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 1/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

I've been a fan - of sorts - of Pat Higgins' work for a while now ever since someone lent me a copy of his debut feature TrashHouse. Thankfully Higgins has learnt from his mistakes with that work and has ditched the special effects in favour of story, character and decent actors! This film is miles better than his first and really draws people in from the start with a clever story and its too his credit that he has managed to get decent performances from most of his cast but once again the lack of a decent budget lets the film down at the climatic finale.

There are some minor quibble however. The camera-work in one scene - set in a kitchen in the middle of the night - isn't great and fails even the most basic cinematography rules while the performance of Cy Henty is truly shocking (surprisingly so, seeing as he was one of the best actors in TrashHouse). Had Higgins kept a firm lead on Henty's performance and maybe found a better cameraman this would have got a couple of extra stars.

But these are minor quibbles as I said - this is a low budget movie after all and surprisingly enjoyable one.