"Hell is other people" according to Jean-Paul Sartre, but if I may paraphrase for relevancy's sake, "Hell is the Thai horror film of the same name".

The appropriately titled Hell takes a novel approach in its depiction of eternal damnation by killing off its hip, hot cast almost immediately. Wasted in a car accident on a dark and foggy night, seven journalists are sent to H-E-double-hockey-sticks to suffer for their earthly sins. The group embarks on a grand adventure through the grim landscapes of the underworld in an effort to redeem themselves and escape an eternity of torment.

But things go south from here, as the film squanders its promising premise with a schmaltzy script and pedestrian execution. After receiving their sentencing at the Hell Labs Ironic Punishment Division, Scooby and the gang decide to fight their way out by any means necessary. Along the way they witness horrific acts of ironic torture; alcoholics must gargle boiling oil for 8,000 years. Piffle, only 8,000? Come on Satan, you can do better than that!

Friendships are tested and sins are confessed throughout the journey, but only three souls can return to the land of the living. Who will it be? The hard-drinking uncle? The well-meaning Art? The breasty, sexalicious Ja? The slightly annoying nephew? Chances are it won't be the cheating, back-stabbing Chod, who continually disrupts the group dynamic with his selfish attempts at solo salvation. Damn you, Chod!

Those Meddling Kids!

Freddy devises a plan to rescue Scooby as Daphne (center) and Velma look on. (Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Film Society)

The film's heavy-handed pontification is responsible in large part for its undoing. Coming across as a sort of Buddhist moral hygiene film, Hell is relentless in its desire to damn the wicked and dole out much-deserved justice to its sinful cast. It's almost as if the film was intended to play in temples instead of theaters. And I thought Catholics were annoying!

Ruminations on past misdeeds only serve to deepen the dislike of the drunken / cheating / wife-beating / selfish / callous leads, and even those who ultimately make it back to terra firma don't seem all that deserving of a second chance. With no desire to see the protagonists to safety, the film becomes a tedious trip through one grisly setpiece after another. Even the brutal persecution sequences fail to elicit anything more than an angry yawn.

Hell is a visual catastrophe, wasting detailed torture chamber sets with pathetic visual effects straight out of a weekend After Effects seminar. Unimpressive fight sequences and amateurish wirework, coupled with a MIDI synth-pop soundtrack lifted from your favorite Casio cover band, make this a hellacious assault on all fronts.

Given the choice between watching Hell and actually going there... well, let's just say that an eternity of unending torment is a small price to pay to avoid watching this half-hearted horror film. Not even crafty product placement of Thailand's favorite beer, Singha, can save the day.

Thumbs Down. Go to hell, Hell!