Movie Review: Hellarious (2019)

Hellarious is a horror-comedy anthology consisting of seven short films. Each film is from a different cast and crew, so we are going to dive into them all here, and give our thoughts and a short review for each film.

Killer Kart –

Written and directed by James Feeney, Killer Kart is deceivingly good. The production quality is fantastic, and they used some classic horror elements to do something completely out of the ordinary that you wouldn’t expect. It’s about some people working in a supermarket at the closing shift, and they are terrorized by a killer shopping cart. The two girls working in the supermarket are Cass (Christine Rodriguez), and Bailey (Ella Schaefer) who both did some phenomenal acting here. The production quality was great, and the kill scenes were awesome. Overall, Killer Kart was more than enjoyable and was a great short horror film that takes a silly concept and turned it into a quality horror experience.

Horrific –

Horrific is about a guy who is just trying to relax in his trailer and ends up having to deal with an evil creature instead. Written and Directed by Robert Boocheck (ABCs of Death 2), and starring Mike C. Nelson as Tex, this was an awesome short film. The sound and cinematography really shine in it. There were also a couple of really well-written, imaginative scenes in which Tex is fighting the creature and it goes totally Evil Dead in style including some whack-a-mole, which was great. The overall production was great for this segment, and we loved it.

‘Til Death – 

This short was also pretty good. It was about a group of married friends who meet up with each other once in a while to let loose and have some drinks. They are all fed up with their spouses, and after having a laugh about killing them, find that there is some seriousness in their conversation. We don’t want to give away what happens next, but it’s not exactly what they plan, and if there is one thing that makes for good horror-comedy, it’s a plan that backfires. This one was directed by Jason Tostevin, and co-written by Tostevin and Randall Greenland. This film reminded us in some ways of Death Becomes Her stylistically, which was great. The writing was really good, and the production quality was also awesome. Overall, just a solid horror-comedy and a really fun one.

Death Metal –

This short film is about a death metal guitarist playing in the park for tips. The only problem is that he’s not good. His great grandfather left behind a satanic guitar that looks like something Tenacious D would play, and as you could expect, the demonic guitar does some demonic things. Written and directed by Chris McInroy and starring Michael Dalmon, this is a must-see. It doesn’t have a lot of backstory of frills, but what it does have is a lot of good special effects. The practical effects for the gore are over-the-top and in a good way. We absolutely loved this one for that.

Lunch Ladies – 

This film holds a special place in our hearts. We had actually reviewed this one a while back, so we will add our previous review here as part of this anthology review. Written by Clarissa Jacobson, and directed by J.M. Logan, here is the review we originally posted:

The story follows Seretta Burr (Donna Pieroni), and LouAnne Burr (Mary Manofsky) who are opening their mail in the car on the way to Melvin High School where they work as lunch ladies in the cafeteria. In that mail, they have received a letter informing them that they have won the grand prize in a “cook for kids” charity contest with their “Cheesy Burger Bites” recipe. The letter is from Johnny Depp himself who is their idol, and they dream of being his personal chef. Depp invites them to his concert and ceremony for the winners. Needless to say, Seretta and LouAnne are ecstatic and arrive at school on cloud 9.

Once they arrive at school, and lunch rolls around they are snapped back to reality when having to serve the ungrateful teenagers with some of the grossest-looking food you will see. The kitchen looks disgusting. They are just trying to make it through the day without reaching it, but these lunch ladies are at their breaking point. One in particular named Alexis (Daisy Kershaw) makes sure to give them a hard time.

Without giving too much away, the lunch ladies basically have to cook up a plan to save their jobs by the next day for “Surprise Friday” lunch at the cafeteria as the principal has threatened to replace them if they don’t. This would result in them not only being fired, but also not being able to make it to their ceremony concert event with Johnny Depp, and they aren’t about to let that happen.

The quality of this film is amazing. Everything from the writing and acting, to the set design, sound, and cinematography were perfect. It couldn’t have been better. It felt like a big-budget film you would see in the theater. It also had a sort of 90’s vibe which was a welcome surprise and they did a fantastic job of capturing the essence of that time. Huge kudos to the cast and crew here for such a great job all around. This would have been really enjoyable as a feature-length film, and we would love to see this happen.

Overall, Lunch Ladies is one of the best horror short films we have ever seen. It has just about everything you want to see in a horror/comedy and executed to perfection. We absolutely recommend this to any fan of horror/comedy films, or either. It’s good enough to please the taste of just about anyone.

Bitten – 

Directed by Sarah K. Reimers, and co-written by Michael Curran and Francine Torres, Bitten is a film about a woman who just wants to go out and have a good time. She leaves her dog at home on a full moon, and some very unexpected things happen. This was a very interesting take on films that are based on werewolves of some kind. It was a pretty fresh approach and a great idea for a story. Aside from that, the acting was pretty decent given the odd circumstances in which they were in, and overall it was just a solid short horror film.

Born Again –

This was another short by director Jason Tostevin. Like ‘Til Death this was co-written by Tostevin and Randall Greenland. This was another pretty interesting concept. It’s about some people that are trying to perform a satanic ritual on a sacrifice and much like every other story in this anthology, something goes terribly wrong. It would be hard to explain without giving anything away, but this one had a pretty funny outcome and some nice practical effect and costume design.

As a whole, Hellarious is a fantastic anthology. Every short film in this anthology was great, and in just about in every way you could ask for as a fan of horror and horror-comedy. There was a lot of blood, there were great practical effects all around, the acting was good, and for indie productions, these all had great production value and looked better than some big-budget films and the writing was more than you could ask for. It’s an outstanding example to set for indie filmmakers. We would definitely recommend watching this when it releases on 9/17/19.

You can pre-order Hellarious here: https://horrorpack.com/store/hellarious/