EXIT 33

There are not a lot of actors who can boast a CV comprising of being credited to play a trio of Horror movie icons. Kane Hodder is the only actor to lay claim to the fact he played Jason Voorhees more than once. Indeed he donned the sinister mask and machete 4 times in Friday the 13th parts 7 through to 10. His parallel vocation as stuntman gave him gave him the opportunity to do Leatherface’s dirty work as stunt stand-in in the third instalment of the original TCM series. To top it off he is credited for playing Freddie Kruegers arm in the final frame on Jason Goes to Hell.

More recently Hodder took the lead role as Victor Crowley in another movie steadily developing into a franchise, Hatchet. Indeed it is his association with house hold horror that is unashamedly exploited to endorse a new picture from director Tommy Brunswick in the form of EXIT 33.

As the title suggests the movie is concerned with a dubious slip road in the scarce outback of the USA. Hodder plays the main character, Ike, who owns a LAST CHANCE GAS station which acts as a magnet to unsuspecting victims.

After having their tanks filled at Ike’s services, certain customers would experience mysterious malfunction of their engines. The movie wastes no time in revealing that Ike is in fact contaminating the fuel in order to purposely cause them to break down a mile or so into their journey. Neither does it hide the fact that Ike is the ruthless murderer of these specifically selected victims.

When Ike is revealed to have a penchant for extracting and preserving eyeballs, it is the viewers simple quandary to question why the murders are taking place instead of who is doing the slaying.

Aside from his disgusting hobby of eyeball conservation, Ike spends his time playing chess with his son and caring for his wife who – wait for it – is missing an eye!!!

As the movie trundles on, all is revealed including what other losses his wife suffered when her vision was halved…

Overall this was a very disappointing effort. With such a simple movie you at least want the gore and murders to be memorable. The initial kill to start proceedings is uninspiring stuff, only providing the viewer with a quick glimpse of a stranded female motorist getting axed at night.

My main problem with the movie was its lighting. There was one particular scene of eye gouging that was explicitly shown and also a rather nasty skinning sequence. But all too often the violence was filmed during night and the excessively darkened cinematography left me feeling a little conned. In some sequences the camera simply looked the other way to let us fill in the blanks! Not a great technique when the already limited torture porn-esque foundation is being built on!

The predictability of the plot’s revelation only accentuated the feeling that the story would have been far more effective as a punchy short film as oppose to being stretched into feature. The beginning and end title sequences weighing in at over 8 minutes did not do much to convince me otherwise!

Unless you are an avid Friday the 13th devotee the movie may well prove to be rather disappointing. It is a shame really, because Mr Hodder himself would appear to be one of the most approachable guys on the international horror convention circuit. A lot of his interviews convey a real interest in his gruesome exploits as Jason so I honestly believe he deserves better quality projects for his many trades to be applied to.

Review by Marc Lissenburg