Hell High (1989) (BLU-RAY REVIEW)
Director: Douglas Grossman
Starring: Christopher Cousins, Maureen Mooney, Kathryn Rossetter
RATED: R/REGION A/1:85/1080P/NUMBER OF DISCS 1
AVAILABLE FROM Arrow Video
Teenage kicks take a decidedly dark turn in director Douglas Grossman’s Hell High – a twisted tale of delinquency pushed to its horrifying extreme, where Class of 1984 meets I Spit on Your Grave! When high school football hero Jon-Jon (Breaking Bad’s Christopher Cousins) quits the team, he winds up falling in with a group of outcasts led by the sadistic Dickens (played to unhinged perfection by the late Christopher Stryker). With a willing new recruit in tow, the gang’s youthful hijinks soon spiral into a night of abject horror when they decide to play a cruel prank on the home of their teacher Miss Storm – who, unbeknownst to the youngsters, harbors a dark and tormented past.
The slasher movie boom in the 80’s come on fast and it came on mean, but in the large wave of the slashers that were released a few got lost in the shuffle. One of those is the movie we are talking about here released from Arrow Video on Blu-ray called Hell High. This is one that I’m pretty sure got a DVD release at one point, but since we are in the year 2022 that might as well have just been a VHS! Filmed in 86 and released a couple years after (even after an actor in this movie had really died) this one comes to us and is about the middle of the road just leaning towards the good side of things. Everything happens here after some teens decide to mess with a teacher and she goes a little off the rails. It’s a movie that overall doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s fun and it has an eerie vibe to it that holds your attention from start to finish with some cool stuff, despite not having an overall blood bath. So in the group of slashers you can find out there, it’s by far not the best but it isn’t the worse. ‘
So, this is the first time we’ve seen this thing on Blu-ray and it looks pretty good as you would expect from Arrow Video. You get probably more extras than you would even expect for a movie of this nature, but one of the very best things you get in the extras is a commentary from Joe Bob Briggs and I’d watch anything that guy is doing a commentary track over. You also get a reversible cover and a slipcase, as Arrow has given it the grand treatment that it gave to other weird and “lost” slashers as they did with Girls Night Out. And for the record, if you liked Girls Night Out you should love this because I think it’s ten times better than that one was.
Extras
Brand new 2K restoration from the original camera negative approved by cinematographer Steven Fierberg
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
- Original uncompressed stereo audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Brand new audio commentary with director/producer/co-writer Douglas Grossman and cinematographer Steven Fierberg
- Archival audio commentary with director/producer/co-writer Douglas Grossman
- Archival introduction and audio commentary with film critic Joe Bob Briggs
- School’s Out! – a newly-filmed interview with director/producer/co-writer Douglas Grossman
- A Beautiful Nightmare – a newly-filmed interview with cinematographer Steven Fierberg
- Jon-Jon’s Journey – a newly-filmed interview with actor Christopher Cousins
- The More the Better – a newly-filmed interview with actress Maureen Mooney
- Music is Not Sound – a newly-filmed interview with composers Rich Macar and Christopher Hyams-Hart
- Back to Schools: The Locations of Hell High – a tour of the original Hell High filming sites with author/filmmaker Michael Gingold
- Archival video interviews with director/producer/co-writer Douglas Grossman and co-writer Leo Evans
- Deleted Scene
- Alternate Opening Titles
- Trailers and TV Spots
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly-commissioned artwork by Ralf Krause
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring liner notes by Michael Gingold, including an exclusive interview with stunt coordinator/actor Webster Whinery
