Review of Hard Ride to Hell (2010) by Jason D — 29 Jun 2010

Hard Ride to Hell is the story of a group of young campers embarking on a road trip through the state of Texas in order to have a little bit of fun and relaxation, especially for damaged chick Laura Mennell who had a miscarriage and can never be with child again.

As luck would have it, one of them comes across a group of lumbering, cannibalistic, satanic bikers who are in the middle of a blood sacrifice. Naturally, they hear the peeper and begin to give chase leading to one of the longest and often times dullest of second acts until the two parties (sans a couple of dead bodies along the way) collide within the confines of an old church in an abandoned ghost town that's slightly highlighted in the beginning.

Genre faves Miguel Ferrer (Robocop, Night Flier) plays the leader of the biker gang and former member of the Crowley party, and Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps franchise, Freddy vs. Jason) plays one of the token campers.

This film's biggest downfall is it's incorporation of some super-awesome subplots that are explained for a minute then totally forgotten about in favor of dragging out excruciatingly long chase scenes.

There's a supernatural amulet belonging to Mexican farmers that controls nature itself, the Crowley society back-story, the cannibal back-story, and even the Special Ops knife salesman who comes to rescue the campers.

..all underplayed in favor of overdone, tedious scenes of boredom. The film finally begins to get lively within the church where everyone does battle, but it wasn't nearly enough to make up for the film.

Even the blood, gore, and deaths are very lacking until the church scene. Ferrer, Isabelle, and the Special Ops guy are engaging to watch, which is nice considering the rest of the cast is incredibly awful.

Overall, a film I thought was going to be promising winds up being a really bad rip-off of Race of the Devil. There were a lot of great ideas throughout this film, but ultimately, they were all very misused.