Film Review: TO HELL AND BACK: THE KANE HODDER STORY (2017)

Documentaries that focused on a single individual can fall into two camps – one is that it’s too pretentious to actually say something serious about the subject or two it tells a well-rounded and comprehensive look at the subject’s life and career both the good and the bad.  Unfortunately, the second one only actually happens when the subject has already passed on.  So it is with great pleasure that To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story (2017) belongs in the second type and Kodder is very much still alive.

For those of you who are not familiar of who Kane Hodder is (and I doubt there is a single horror fan who doesn’t know who he is), Hodder is a stunt actor/stunt coordinator/actor most famous most famous for playing the immortal Jason Voorhees in four of the Friday the 13^th films as well as the character of Victory Crowley in the four Hatchet films (the forth film called simply Victor Crowley).  In addition to this Hodder has worked on a ton of films including Demolition Man (1993), House (1985), Se7en (1995), and Spawn (1997), to name a small few of the films. 

In this film Hodder goes into intimate details about being a young child who was abused to an early accident where he was horrendously burned to his current recovery and insistent on always helping others.  This is reiterated by a huge cast of actors and fellow crew members who relate their stories of working with Hodder on very productions.  Some of the people featured included John Carl Buechler, Sean S. Cunningham, Bruce Campbell, Robert England, Adam Green, and Bill Moseley, with is just a small sampling of the people interviewed.

Directed by Derek Dennis Herbert, this could have easily been a talking heads documentary about Hodder but the stories these people tell show a brighter like on Hodder as a person and Hodder’s own recollections shed a light on how he overcame so many elements in his life that would have crippled other people.  This is not just a film about the man and his work but a film that gets into the deeper character of a man who has continuously faced challenges head on and never letting anyone or anything decide his own fate other than himself.

This is an amazing story of an amazing individual that has had a profound effect on the horror genre and horror fans in general and this is a great film that expertly separates the myth from the man.

Film Review: THE HORROR SHOW (1989)

Max Jenke (Brion James) is a cleaver and ruthless killer responsible for more death and killing than any other known serial killer and he’s just been captured by Detective Lucus McCarthy (Lance Henrickson) and this is just the beginning of what is to come in The Horror Show (1989).  After capturing Jenke and seeing his partner die, McCarthy’s professional and personal life begins to unravel and he thinks that being present for the execution of Jenke is the only way for him to get his life back. 

There is more to death then just dying as pure evil such as Jenke just doesn’t die but can transform into something else.  Jenke becomes a being of energy that manipulates the things around him to tease and torture McCarthy.  Now McCarthy, with the help of an eccentric scientist Peter Campbell (Thom Bray) who understands what Jenke has become, must find a way to destroy Jenke before he continues on his killing spree.

James, as usual, knows how to play to his strengths as a crazed killer with menace in his blood.  Henrickson gives 110% and the two of them together make for formidable opponents.  As produced by Sean S. Cunningham (the man behind the Friday the 13^th franchise and House films (of this was originally conceived as the third film)) and directed by James Isaac this is a fun and entertaining film that should appease fans of ‘80s horror films.