Hell Fest is a 2018 American slasher film directed by Gregory Plotkin and written by Seth M. Sherwood, Blair Butler, Akela Cooper and from a story by William Penick, Christopher Sey and Stephen Susco.
The film stars Amy Forsyth, Reign Edwards, Bex Taylor-Klaus, and Tony Todd, and follows a group of teens who are stalked by a serial killer while visiting a traveling Halloween carnival.
At Hell Fest, a traveling horror theme park, a masked man known as "The Other" kills a woman and hangs her corpse in the maze so it blends in with the props.
Natalie, Brooke and Quinn find Taylor has volunteered to take part in an attraction where she will be beheaded by a guillotine in front of a live audience.
[4] The following January, Gary Dauberman was hired to polish a previous draft written by William Penick & Chris Sey.
[7] Screenwriter Seth M. Sherwood was brought in after working with Plotkin on the virtual reality horror film Black Mass.
[8] Hell Fest started filming in Atlanta, Georgia and at Six Flags White Water in late February 2018, and wrapped on April 13, 2018.
[2] In the United States and Canada, Hell Fest was released alongside Smallfoot, Night School and Little Women, and was projected to gross $5–7 million from 2,293 theaters in its opening weekend.
The website's critical consensus reads, "Hell Fest might give less demanding horror fans a few decent reasons to scream, but it's neither clever nor frightening enough to leave much of an impression.
"[14] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 26 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".
[12] Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com gave the film 1.5/4 stars, writing that "Hell Fest is a pretty bad movie that makes a great case for more slashing at horror theme parks.
Club gave the film a D+ and said "even slasher junkies desperate for a fix will find themselves bored by Gregory Plotkin's lame second feature...it delivers the tedious, heavy-breathing buildup associated with the genre, but skimps on the scares and the gory, gooey good stuff.
"[19] Michael Nordine of IndieWire also gave the film a D+ and, while applauding its "vaguely feminist subtext," found that "for the most part Hell Fest simply adheres to long-established genre tropes.