PORTAL TO HELL

****

Directed by Woody Best.

Starring Trey Holland, Romina D’Ugo, Keith David, Richard Kind.

Horror, USA, 93 mins.

Reviewed as part of FrightFest 2025 - UK Premiere

Cinematographer Woody Bess self-funded this witty, unexpectedly charming film that represents his feature debut as writer-director. Shot in his apartment and making prominent use of Hot Chelle Rae’s “Tonight Tonight” (the band’s lead singer Ryan Follese, a friend of the filmmaker, makes a cameo), it’s an unusually good-natured horror comedy. The central message seems to be that humans are flawed, sometimes they are dicks, but most of us are more than capable of living up to a general mantra of “Be nice”.

Trey Holland plays Dunn, a likeable guy in an unlikeable day job: an independently contracted debt collector with a series of would-be rapport-building scripted questions and a possibly detrimental tendency to feel bad for the indebted. In between being told to go fuck himself and falling for adorable neighbour Ed (Romina D’Ugo), he discovers a portal to Hell in the local laundromat and realises the only way he can save his terminally ill neighbour Mr. Bobshank (the always charismatic Keith David) is to round up three suitably unsavoury souls and send them straight to Hades.

Holland’s deadpan, appealing performance, the blossoming relationship with D’Ugo and the sometimes genuinely lovely dialogue (“You’ve done terrible things for beautiful reasons”) lend this small-scale, character-driven piece substantial appeal. It’s light on the surface and features the kind of characters who are a pleasure to hang around with. Plus, Richard Kind’s scene-stealing turn as the chipper demon (“I thought I’d fuck two rats with one stick”) would be worth tuning in to, even if the rest wasn’t so damn loveable.

Steven West