Highway to Hell (1990): Mass-murderer Toby Gilmore (Benton Jennings, who also wrote Reanimator Academy) has broken out of prison and is hiding in the desert, where he’s been picking people off. Officer Earl Dent (Richard Harrison) has wanted to kill Gilmore ever since the scumbag assaulted his daughter. As for Fran Thomson (Blue Thompson), she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time, constantly chased and taken by the maniac, a pawn in his plans of, well, killing everyone around him.

Directed by Bret McCormick, written by Gary Kennamer (who directed the second movie on this Visual Vengeance release, Redneck County Fever) and shot on 16mm, this and Recneck were made after a conversation with David DeCoteau about making lean movies that could be turned out quickly. Despite the budget, shooting this in rural Texas gives the film a character it wouldn’t have otherwise. 

The film doesn’t just take place in the desert; it feels born from it. The choice of 16mm film is crucial here. Unlike the clean, sterile look of modern digital indies, the grain in this production acts like a layer of silt over the lens. It heightens the isolation of the rural Texas landscape, turning every rusted gas pump and sun-bleached cactus into a potential tombstone. It captures a “weat-and-exhaust aesthetic that makes the viewer feel dehydrated.

Greg Synodis, who also composed the music for Reanimator Academy, is responsible for the score, which ramps up the tension as Fran’s life gets worse by the minute. 

Sure, this feels like a much, much lower budget The Hitcher, but we don’t hold that against Hitcher In the Dark either. It’s a great example of what McCormick learned from his early films and how he took the knowledge of keeping everything lean while never letting up on the intensity. Plus, while some say he was phoning it in, I saw Harrison as having a weary, end-of-the-rope gravity in his role as Officer Dent. This isn’t just a professional manhunt for him. It’s a personal exorcism and provides the moral stakes that anchor the chaotic violence.

Redneck County Fever (1992): Directed and written by Gary Kennamer, this has two stoners whose car dies in the middle of the same rural Texas we just drove through in Highway to Hell. While McCormick’s film treats the Texas landscape like a graveyard, Kennamer treats it like a playground of the absurd. The choice to feature two stoners as our heroes immediately deconstructs the tension established in McCormick’s film.

Imagine Bill and Ted in Texas, having adventures that last sixty minutes but may feel much longer. Such is this film. It’s nice to have it as part of the Visual Vengeance Blu-ray release as a companion piece, and to wonder how many of the same crew worked on this. You can see the same dust, the same grainy 16mm textures, and likely the same craft services table (if there even was one). 

Putting scream queen Michelle Bauer on the cover when she doesn’t appear in a single frame is a hall-of-fame don’t believe it by its VHS cover marketing idea. It captures the desperate, hilarious hustle of independent distribution, one in which selling a goofy SOV stoner comedy means making it seem like something it isn’t.

Shot in rural Texas, Highway to Hell stands as a prime example of the regional, low-budget filmmaking that fueled America’s video boom of the 1980s and ’90s. Originally released on VHS via Rae Don Home Video, the film showcases director Bret McCormick (The Abomination, Repligator), a key figure in the Texas exploitation underground, whose raw energy and ingenuity turn poverty row resources into a fast-paced, sun-baked thriller that captures the true spirit and grit of independent genre cinema. This is released for the first time ever on Blu-ray, just like the bonus SOV feature film, Redneck County Fever. Made from an SD master from original tape elements, this has a commentary and interview with director Bret McCormick; interviews with Blue Thompson, Richard Harrison, Gary Kennamer and Tom Fegan; an image gallery; a commentary track and interviews on Redneck County Fever with Bret McCormick and Gary Kennamer; Visual Vengeance trailers; a “Stick Your Own” VHS sticker set; a reversible sleeve featuring original VHS art; a folded Redneck County Fever mini-poster and a limited edition O-CARD featuring original poster art. You can get this from MVD.