Watch it at Amazon
5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :- Great Low Budget Horror Anthology From Troma!, That's Creative, With 3 Cool Stories, And An Awesome Ending!, 21 June 2005 Author: (callanvass@hotmail.com) from victoria b.c canada
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
This is a great low budget horror anthology from Troma, that's creative, with 3 great stories!. I saw this in the horror section, at the DVD store i go to, and it was on cheap, so i picked it up, but i wasn't expecting much, however what i got was a great Anthology, that was very entertaining, and i will watch it again!. It's also pretty well made, and it had one fantastic performance from Debbie Rochon, plus it was actually quite creepy in places!.1st Story ("Watery Grave"). This is the weakest of the bunch however it's still pretty entertaining, with some creepy mood thrown in,however the acting definitely needed some work,still this is a pretty entertaining story that i enjoyed, the ending was pretty cool too. a solid! Grade B 2nd Story ("White Trash Love Story") This is a very cool story, with bad acting, and dialog, however it's very interesting, and very entertaining, with a really amusing ending,and there were actually a couple moments where i felt sorry for the lead character!. Grade B+3rd story ("Big Rhonda") is the best of the bunch it's extremely entertaining, with decent performances, and a bit of nudity and tame lesbianism, however i liked the flashbacks, and the ending is pretty damn cool, plus it had me in stitches a couple of times Grade A There is quite a bit of blood and gore. We get head bashed in with a rock,very gory stabbings,decapitation,gory transformation,gory impaling with machete,cut off hand,bloody corpses,slit wrists,an ATF slit throat,severed head, and lots of blood!.The Acting is bad, but a lot of fun!.Debbie Rochon is STUNNINGLY GORGEOUS, and is AMAZING here, she is very creepy, extremely convincing, had some awesome lines, and i will never forget that creepy laugh, she was simply amazing!. Gunnar Hansen is pretty good as the executioner and was kinda cool. Rest of the cast range from very bad to decent.Overall i highly recommend this great low budget horror anthology!.***1/2 out of 5
7 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :- Great horror anthology from the folks at Troma., 22 December 2003 Author: bfan83 (bfan83@yahoo.com) from Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Debbie Rochon gave a downright creepy performance as Tara! A serial killer. The stories were all well done. Especially "White Trash Love Story." I never laughed so hard before in my life. But in a good way. The other two stories had goosebumps running up and down my spine. They were all very chilling and suspenseful. But the standout in this movie was Debbie Rochon who gave a performance so chilling I had to turn the light on! Anyways, rent this movie if you're a fan of anthologies and get prepared for a scary, good time.
4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :- A nice'n'nasty little low-budget horror anthology romp, 14 August 2006 Author: Woodyanders (Woodyanders@aol.com) from The Last New Jersey Drive-In on the Left
I was a big fan of Paul Talbot's enthusiastically gory debut horror anthology feature "Campfire Tales," so I naturally watched this follow-up fright film omnibus outing expecting a pleasingly gruesome and straightforward ghoulish good time. Fortunately, this lowdown gritty affair doesn't disappoint, for it measures up as a nice'n'nasty little low-budget indie winner.The sturdy wraparound segments center on Tara (a fabulously fiery'n'feisty performance by gorgeous Troma movie regular Debbie Rochon), a deranged murderess who's about to have that fatal onetime only sitting on Old Sparky. Prior to getting strapped, capped and zapped, Tara whiles away her last few hours on earth relating a trio of scary stories inspired by the tortured souls of past inmates to her mean, cruelly impassive jailhouse executioner (gruffly essayed by Gunnar Hansen; Leatherface in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"). First and most unnerving yarn - A young mother shows no concern whatsoever when her two kids mysteriously disappear. The hideously bloated and grotesque spirits of the drowned tots start haunting their mom's dreams and eventually exact a harsh revenge. Second and most ironic vignette - A battered trailerpark housewife uses witchcraft to rid herself of her viciously abusive jerk hick husband, only for things to go disastrously awry -- her brutish hubs transforms from a figurative monster into a literal one! Third and most delightfully trashy anecdote - A rowdy biker gang en route to an annual Mexico drug run stop off at a cemetery to pay their respects to legendary bad-a** motorcycle mama Big Rhonda (busty blonde babe J.J. North). After the expected excessive boozing, doping and making out, Big Rhonda's body comes to life as a gnarled machete-wielding zombie so it can kill the undercover cop posing as one of the dirtbag chopper hounds.Director/co-screenwriter/co-editor Paul Talbot directs with tremendous flair and gusto: he keeps the pace constantly brisk, creates a perfectly spooky atmosphere, lays on the graphic bloodshed by the gleefully explicit bucketful, and stages the shock scenes with lip-smacking brio. Better still, the general tone is grimly serious, with amusingly warped touches of pitch-black humor sprinkled throughout. Paul Cornwell's rough, grainy cinematography contributes greatly to the overall flesh-crawling ooga booga creepiness. Ditto the spare, shivery synthesizer score by Andrew Scott Foust, Eric Martin and Kirk Luther. And the expertly used South Carolina locations give the picture a deliciously tart'n'tangy downhome regional flavor.
6 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :- For Debbie Rochon fans only!, 17 April 2000 Author: zmaturin from Pleasant Valley, NY
Let it be said: This movie isn't very good. It runs the gamut from boring to stupid to ugly to cheap. Sometimes it achieves all four of those things at once.It's an anthology flick with three short stories, but they move so slow you'll feel like you're watching a six hour pain-fest. In the first unengaging tale, a woman's kids are missing, and some dull things happen. Then there's "White Trash Love Story", by default the best segment in the movie, although it moves so slow you'll be asleep before the pretty good effects at the climax. Then there's the embarrassing tale of the over-age bikers who try to resurrect the late "Big Rhonda", mainly through some "hot" girl-on-girl action.The film's saving grace is the beautiful Debbie Rochon's fun performance as the jailed serial killer Tara, who spins the pathetic tales of "terror". Luckily this movie is available on DVD, so you can skip directly to her parts in the movie.But you're not gonna wanna even watch that much, because this movie really stinks. It falls below even Troma's admittedly low quality standards. Perhaps if they packed it with ideas like "Tromeo & Juliet" and gave it a sense of humor it would have been bearable, but as it stands, it is a big juicy crap burger.
3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :- Great Anthology Fun, 29 July 2008 Author: Zombie-Flesh-Eater (booperkins@aol.com) from United Kingdom, Colchester.
If you like anthologies in the style of CREEPSHOW, CREEPSHOW 2 and TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE, this is just for you.It feature 3 great little stories (around 20 - 25 minutes each), with a decent wraparound story to it. It has a nice amount of gore in it as well, if that's your thing.All the stories are good...that's the surprising thing - the third just edging it for me.It feature Debbie Rochon (gorgeous as ever) and the original 'LEATHERFACE' Gunnar Hansen, in the wraparound tale which is good in itself.I picked this up off ebay for a really small amount (£1.70, around $3.00) worth every penny, so if this sounds your thing, get on ebay or look on AMAZON.COM,and grab it...you should'nt be disappointed.
4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :- Great B-movie madness!, 24 January 2005 Author: precinct 13 from Melbourne, Australia
The story of a witch who is in prison awaiting the electric chair. She has a book of stories and reads them to her executioner. Three stories follow: The first one is the story of a mother who drowns her two children and they become the undead and seek revenge. The second is about a pretty young white trash wife of a redneck slob who hits her so she seeks the help of a mysterious witch to put a curse on him. The third and final story is about a vicious biker gang who intend to raise the spirit of an old female biker Big Rhonda. A fun film to watch with some great Southern locations, my personal favorite being the second story entitled 'White Trash Love Story' featuring the actress who steals the show Jennifer Peluso, with her incredible acting skills and her stunning good looks. Definitely worth watching if you a a fan of Troma films, although this one does not push the outer limits like most Troma titles, it is humorous and violent but never goes too far. Gunner Hansen and Debbie Rochon are great as always.
4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :- A great collection of horror stories, despite the low budget!, 7 August 2002 Author: Are-you-having-your-period
This is a great collection, even though it is clearly low budget! It is entertaining throughout, and even though it is clearly low budget, the first and second story holdyour attention throughout, and the third is voyeuristicly entertaining! The girl is the wraparound is beautiful, and is worth renting for her alone! A good collection, well worth renting!
5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :- I was Tromafied, 19 June 2001 Author: bozotheripper from Cadogan, PA U.S.A.
If you are a true Troma fan,you will love this movie. Debbie Rochan showed a great performance. Gunnar Hansen,the original Leatherface, also makes a appearance as their warden. Most of the stories are like most Troma movies with multiple tales of terror(such as chillers), they have a story that is all right and interesting. But they all have a real good ending. Also the ending of the main story is an excellent climax. I give it a 97/100
3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :- K-e-r-a-p, 5 October 2006 Author: Koolz1200 from United Kingdom
Now don't get me wrong i do love my ham low-budget and low-brow horror but this is really quite wack stuff even at your most haphazard silly level. Three relatively boring short stories told by a woman on death-row to her prison guard just before her execution.... incidentally the girl who's on death-row who tells the "stories" is fit and ...er...yeh...is probably about the only decent thing in this forgettable film. The three short stories that are told are simply very ,very , very weak stuff and frankly just straight up uninteresting. The first story is so painfully acted by everyone involved its a relief once it's over ...the mundane "suspense" of the story isn't helped by some awful camera continuity , wack editing . The one highlight admittedly is the slightly amusing second short story of a wife beating redneck....completely silly and seemingly made-up as they were filming storyline is reprived by it's bemusing off-the-wall ending. Third story...i dnno some biker devilish cult malarky promises something but again ends up crap.Overall it's mostly an uninteresting , generally non-sensical bunch of stories filmed badly and directed badly , edited and sequenced in a way that struggles to convey any decent viewing. It really isn't worth the time or effort to make even the most passive of viewing ...even at this most botchit level of low-budget horror.
3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :- Low budget horror anthology. Not that good., 22 January 2006 Author: Paul Andrews (poolandrews@hotmail.com) from UK
Hellblock 13 starts in a prison as the state executioner (Gunnar Hansen) walks around death row surveying the female inmates. He comes across Tara (Debbie Rochon) a particularly nasty serial killer & someone who is due for execution by electric chair that very day, however Tara wants to leave a legacy behind her. That of a book she has wrote & hopes will be published, she decides to read the executioner some of it...The first story is entitled 'Watery Grave' & has selfish Mother of two Sherry Simpson (Amy R. Swaim) wanting a nice peaceful life with her new, & rich, boyfriend Bob Simms (Kirk Bair) so her kids have to make way. However her offspring want revenge for their untimely deaths...The second segment is called 'White Trash Love Story' & features Heidi Mae (Jennifer Peluso) who is abused & beaten by her husband Joe Mark (David G. Holland) & just has to put up with the black eye's. That is until Heidi Mae discovers that a witch (co-writer Michael R. Smith) lives just across the road...The third & final story goes by the name of 'Big Rhonda' which features a gang of bikers making a drugs pick-up to Mexico when they stop off en-route to pay homage to a former member Big Rhonda (J.J. North) who watches over & protects them...Edited, co-written, co-produced & directed by Paul Talbot I thought Hellblock 13 wasn't a particularly good example of the anthology sub-genre. The script by Talbot, Smith & co-producer Jeffrey Miller misses the point of these anthology films, each story needs to be pacey & have a nice twist ending. Unfortunately these basic requirements are sadly lacking in Hellblock 13. The first story Watery Grave is so predictable it's untrue, you will easily guess what will happen within the first few minutes & it plays out exactly like you anticipate it to. Having said that I think this is the best segment & with a bit more time & better plotting could have made for an effective tale. White Trash Love Story is strange & has little in the way of a twist at the end & I thought this segment was all rather pointless although it's not as predictable as Watery Grave. Then there's Big Rhonda which again I just found too predictable, as soon as the word sacrifice is mentioned I knew the outcome, besides that Big Rhonda is the weakest of the three segments & just dull. All three stories lack any sort of life or effective twists & in this particular type of film that's an absolute killer. The first two stories also deal with unpleasant subject matters, the murder of children & wife beating. I know it's only a film & I'm not against exploitation but these issues sat uneasily with me in such a trivial & poorly made film. On a positive note it's watchable & since each segment only lasts for about 25 minutes it's not that boring.Director Talbot doesn't do anything to distinguish the film & as a whole Hellblock 13 lacks any sort of tension, excitement or atmosphere. The closest it ever comes is in Watery Grave which at least takes place at night & tries to create a spooky mood & I also liked the way the children sent threatening messages by rearranging toy blocks with letters on to spell words. There isn't much blood or gore, a couple of decapitated heads, a few poorly made-up zombies, some green slime vomiting, skin bulging, an awful looking witch & a few stabbings.Hellblock 13 is a poorly made film throughout & deserves the straight-to-video status that it got. The music, special effects, cinematography, sets & general production values are poor. Apparently it was filmed in 1997 but was released in 2000 by Troma which says everything you need to know. The acting is awful from everyone involved but Rochon looks quite nice I suppose.Hellblock 13 is an attempt to make an old school horror anthology like Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965), Asylum (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), Tales from the Crypt (1972), Creepshow (1982), Creepshow 2 (1987) & Body Bags (1993) but, it goes without saying, it fails although at least it's watchable.
Add another comment
