Really Surprised!

Pretty Good

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

As exciting as a marathon of news reels, this is a weak mixture of action, romance and anti-war sentiment during the Vietnam war, too cheaply done to get a theatrical release, and no evidence of a T.V. premiere in prime time. The plot is supposed to be about the efforts of American troops to get the last of the Nazi's out of Italy, yet more time is spent on the interactions of soldiers and Italian women, a boring romantic plot involving a commanding officer and a female reporter anxious to report from the front and repetitive stock footage of tanks and bombings. A long introductory sequence makes you think that this is so much more, but it ends up being so little. Former B movie leads John Agar and Richard Webb were obviously hard up for work. This ends up being a waste of time stinker with poor editing, horrid sound (often sounding tinny and warped) and an un-cohesive structure. The only scene worth remembering is the plight of a young soldier at the very beginning writing a letter to his father and having a heart to heart with an older soldier who seems touched over being compared to his dad. Other than that, it is a repetitive repeat over similar situations over and over. If only the hell raiders had raided the studio vault and destroyed this print.

1968's "Hell Raiders" is a real anomaly in the jaw dropping career of grade Z director Larry Buchanan, the 7th of his 8 Azalea Pictures titles, and the only one not of the horror/science fiction genres. While Buchanan acknowledged that the Azaleas would be the films he would be best remembered for, he clearly had little affinity for their subject matter, and he displayed even less flair for this actionless WW2 adventure. It remains a mystery as to why Samuel Z. Arkoff decided to do a color remake of AIP's 1958 black and white war picture "Suicide Battalion," starring Mike Connors and John Ashley, rather than another science fiction title, shot in Texas (non union) like most of the others. Some sources have cited this as a lost film, but it has turned up on Encore's Action channel, plus a DVD release in a boxed set of obscure war films. The uncredited script was penned in 1958 by AIP regular Lou Rusoff, Arkoff's brother-in-law, dead at age 51 by 1963 (his last film was "Beach Party"!). The drab story is simple: Major Ronald Paxton (John Agar) and Captain Brad Stevens (Richard Webb) lead a band of 6 volunteers on a suicide mission to destroy a deserted Allied headquarters in 1944 Italy, a lakeside location with barren trees revealing an autumnal landscape, previously used by Buchanan in 1967's "Mars Needs Women." Inept filmmaking at its most visually unexciting, compounded by a constant barrage of offscreen gunfire and explosions, all obviously dubbed in post production (nearly every gun that fires, no bullets are seen). Five minutes of actual black and white war footage is woven into the first half hour of exposition, followed by the soldiers partying on leave in a deserted town for 72 hours (though another 25 minutes, it only SEEMED like 72 hours!). The actual mission only begins after 55 minutes, and is no better than anything that came before. In what turned out to be his last starring role, John Agar, veteran of Buchanan's earlier "Zontar the Thing from Venus" and "Curse of the Swamp Creature," is at least professional, but the character, like all the others, is strictly one note. Richard Webb and guest star Joan Huntington, busier on television than in lower budgeted fare, supply the other two thirds of a laughable romantic triangle (once Agar kisses her goodbye, she's never seen again). Buchanan regular Bill Thurman, perhaps best remembered by non horror fans as Cloris Leachman's inattentive husband in 1971's "The Last Picture Show," easily stands out in a showy part as Tex, forever a private, who looks after the younger members of the squad. Jeff Alexander, like Agar from both "Zontar..." and "...Swamp Creature" (plus 1973's "Horror High" aka "Twisted Brain"), only gets a minute or two as an unnamed German captain, disappearing just when it seemed we would get a slimy villain to spice things up. By far the worst performance comes from Annabelle MacAdams, the acting pseudonym for Azalea's regular dialogue director Annabelle Weenick, best remembered for her villainous asylum director in 1973's Texas-filmed "Don't Look in the Basement," helmed by former Buchanan editor S. F. Brownrigg. She resembles no less than notorious San Francisco loon Nancy Pelosi with her wide eyes and brunette wig, mangling the English language as an Italian brothel madam. It's no wonder there are few comments on this obscurity, little seen even in its heyday (I did catch it during the 80s on Cleveland station WJW-TV), and easily the most forgettable title among Larry Buchanan's popular Azalea features, strictly for completists only (I'm sure Larry would not disagree).

This is a truly terrible movie. Because of the cast, I gave it a try but gave up after ten minutes. The principal cast including John Agar and Richard Webb were much too old for their roles, 47 and 53 respectively. The lengthy opening documentary about the course of the war was pointless and inaccurate. What did the war of the bombers flying from England have to do with EOD (explosives experts) fighting in Italy? EOD are often brave soldiers but who would ever call them Hell Raiders?I would have ended there, but IMDb wants ten lines. OK, I reiterate: This is a truly terrible movie. Because of the cast, I gave it a try but gave up after ten minutes. The principal cast including John Agar and Richard Webb were much too old for their roles, 47 and 53 respectively. The lengthy opening documentary about the course of the war was pointless and inaccurate. What did the war of the bombers flying from England have to do with EOD (explosives experts) fighting in Italy? EOD are often brave soldiers but who would ever call them Hell Raiders?

One of a series of AIP features remade for television by the legendary Larry Buchanan, Hell Raiders tells the story of a select group of GIs sent on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines in exchange for three months wages and some extra leave. John Agar stars as Major Paxton, who leads his men into battle and through an overwhelming barrage of stock footage. Likewise, the score seems to consist of cues recycled from westerns and sci fi films. Based on 1959's Suicide Battalion, Hell Raiders commits the unpardonable sin of being incredibly boring and spends far too much time on boring romantic subplots. It's even worse than Buchanan's Creature of Destruction, which is quite an accomplishment.