October 8: A Horror Film Shot in South Africa that passes it off as America (there’s a lot)

Director William A. Levey (Blackenstein, Wham! Bam! Thank You, Spaceman!, Slumber Party ’57,  The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington, Skatetown, U.S.A., Lightning the White Stallion) filmed Committed in South Africa — it would come out after this movie — with Jennifer O’Neill and Ron Palillo in South Africa. Yes, people wanted to see the star of The Psychic and the beloved icon of Welcome Back, Kotter in a movie together.

That led Levey to get hired to make Hellgate, which was shot in a real abandoned town in South Africa with a cast of South African actors, even if this is said to be America.

I always talk about twenty and thirtysomething teenagers in these movies. Palillo is a fortysomething teenager in this.

He plays Matt, who is heading out to meet his girlfriend Bobby (Joanne Warde) and her friends Pam (Petrea Curran) and Chuck (Evan J. Klisser) at a cabin in the Sierra Nevada mountains. While they’re waiting for him to show up, Bobby tells the urban legend — it’s a long one — of the Hellgate hitchhiker. Yes, on a night just like this, thirty years ago, Josie Carlyle (Abigail Wolcott) — the daughter of a rich gold miner named Lucas (Carel Trichardt) — was kidnapped, assaulted and killed by a biker gang.

After her father killed all of them with an axe, a prospector found a crystal that can do magic, magic that allowed Lucas to reanimate his daughter’s corpse because he never heard that sometimes, dead is better. Maybe the terrifying giant fish they messed with should have ended all of this.

As this story is being told, Matt has picked up Josie, thinking she’s a hitchhiker, and been chased out of her father’s house when caught getting ready for spicy ghost time. Despite being warned by Zonk (Lance Vaughan), the teens all decide to go into Hallgate, where they see a ghost dance with Josie nude among them, as well as the ghost of the man who killed her, Buzz (Frank Notaro).

Before all that long, it’s just Matt and Pam, as Bobby has strangled and turned into a ghostly vaudevillian and Chuck has had his head torn right off. After all this, Matt still decides that it would be a good idea to test the humidity with the spectral Josie — to be fair, she’s stunning — just in time for Pam to shotgun last her out the window. They run from their now zombie friends and steal Josie’s car. To get out, they literally knock a building down on her dad. And now, Josie just wanders the streets.

This movie looks way better than it should and has some good effects. If you ever wanted to see Horshack nude, well, this movie is for you. I’m kind of astounded by this movie, because man, that fish scene is completely soul destroying.