HELLHOLE - "Pray They Don't Succeed" (1985)

 

"Hellhole" is a potpourri of 80's Pop Culture, but is that enough to make it a good movie, or worth watching? Well, not exactly......but at least it works for a Wrecked or Wretched Wednesday down in The Dungeon!

 

 The title "Hellhole" fits this movie perfect, because you're going to feel like you fell into one after a few minutes of watching.

 

Ray (duBEAT-e-o) Sharkey does a good job of playing a despicable scumbag named Silk. Always living on the edge, Ray died in 1990 at the age of 40 from AIDS.

Judy (The Huggabug Club) Landers is a gal named Susan. That was Susan's Mother being approached by Silk, and she sees him strangle her. She falls out a window, and loses her memory, but Silk and his buddies still need some information from her. And so it goes.......

The Ashland Sanitarium for Women is where Susan ends up after the accident.

Susan only has amnesia, but all the other women in the joint are nuttier than a bunch of Christmas fruitcakes.

Marvelous Mary (Get Crazy) Woronov plays the evil Dr. Fletcher, and is the real reason I watched "Hellhole." I'll watch Mary Woronov in anything, and her performance in this film almost justifies wasting an hour and a half watching it.

Oh to be able to go back in time and see Mary as a go-go dancer in the Velvet Underground's Exploding Plastic Inevitable. That thought alone gives me the impetus to start working on building a time machine. 

 

"Hellhole" rates big in the boob count department, and a lot of it is thanks to Edy (Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls) Williams. In Edy's first appearance, there was no nudity interestingly enough, because it was an episode of "The Twilight Zone" called "The Dummy," where she played a chorus girl.

Slimy Silk poses as an employee at the sanitarium in order to try and squeeze some information out of Susan.

Boy, you just never know what they going to serve for lunch in places like this!

Dr. Fletcher likes to lend a helping hand to girls in need, and then she takes them to her special happy place called the "Hellhole," and tortures them with stuff like chemical lobotomies.

This cast of genuine characters includes former child evangelist Marjoe (Starcrash) Guntner as Dr. Fletcher's lapdog Dr. Dane. He's not as vile as Dr. Fletcher, but he doesn't really try and stop her either.

I can only imagine what this conversation was really about! What a truly dynamic duo!

Guess who?? 

Really, if this film was only about an hour and fifteen minutes shorter, it would have been absolutely fantastic.

There is also a softer, warmer side to Dr. Fletcher, but don't be fooled, underneath it all, she's still a 100% bona fide cruel and wicked bitch!

 

Susan attempts to escape, only to come to a face to face confrontation with Dr. Fletcher.

 

Judy Landers, Mary Woronov, Edy Williams, and if that's not enough for you, Terry (Mighty Joe Young) Moore also makes an appearance as Sidnee Hammond. Terry is still working today, and is of course, notorious for coming out in the 70's as the secret wife of Howard Hughes. I guess it's never been proven one way or another, but there has to be some validity to the story, because the estate did pay her a hefty amount back in the 80's

Now here's a look you don't often see from Mary Woronov, and proof that she looks good no matter what the circumstances might be.

Let's just say that in The End, Dr. Fletcher really gets a taste of her own medicine!

"Hellhole." Action, Drama, Horror, Thriller, or..................Comedy? You tell me!!