We never actually made it beyond the planning stage, mostly because I wound up moving to Brooklyn a few months before our targeted filming dates and George wound up having two kids. Go figure, a H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. member not only finding a woman to provide him with love and sex, but willing to go through a drastic 18 month change of lifestyle and body twisting pain to further his genetic material! Anyway, as such our project is currently on indefinite hiatus for probably the next 20 years or so. Once we’ve made our fortunes though and retired from the everyday rigors of the working man’s lifestyle, mere moments before our premature deaths at the hands of a rampaging meteor hurtled at us by the brown monsters that came from Uranus, we may just be able to make our movie… whose details we’re still remaining tight lipped on, so as to prevent Hollywood from stealing our original ideas now that they’ve used up all of their own and one-time splatter gurus like Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson are forever shackled to slick bid budget blockbuster type cinematica based on other people’s ideas, namely comic books, nerd lore and *shudder* remake movies. Oye.

Anyway, I’ll turn off the anecdote super-collider now as two paragraphs about my personal life should be more than enough to ease you into Back From Hell… at least for some of you, while for the rest there’s no such luck as being “eased” into a movie like this one.

This be a tale of two friends: Jack and Aaron. The duo grew up in the sleepy rural wasteland of Ann Arbor Michigan, where they no doubt engaged in the backwoods life experiences of growing up, like cow tipping, moonshining, tying bullfrogs to bottle rockets, losing their virginities to their stepsisters/cousins and doin’ the DWI with old man Jenkins’ Combine, mowing down stray cats and mailboxes in the dead of night. But, high school couldn’t last forever (the state’s legal obligations end at 21 anyway) and Jack and Aaronhad to go out and make something of themselves in the real world. A-Bomb went on to become a man of the cloth, wearing his white collar and black shirt proudly as one of the few non-molesting emissaries of “God’s” graces, giving spiritual guidance and love to the community that raised him. As for Jack, he fell prey to the old “Hillbilly Heartthrob” stereotype, moving off to Hollywood because he didn’t see what all the beautiful people of the Tinsel Town had that his cornfed-self couldn’t do 10 times better… obviously overlooking the fact that he’s lumpy, stupid looking, has bad teeth, couldn’t emote if the continued existence of the planet depended on it, wears nothing but grey sweatshirts and acid wash jeans, bears the mother of all mullets and can’t remember famous people’s names beyond broad descriptions of them like “that late night talk show guy with the gap between his teeth who I smoked a doobie with in a parking lot”. Yeah, just because Billy Bob Thorton pulled it off, who’s to say a worthless hick like Jack even has the right to attempt taking on Hollywood?! Well kids, that’s where Satan comes in with the answers to all life’s problems…

Yes kids, even Satan has the power that the biggest flesh peddlers and craftiest soul traffickers in Hollywood can’t pull of: making a worthless lump of crap like Jack into a bona fide, money making, top billing idol of worship to the disposable income of mister and missus Middle America. However, as with everything in life you gotta give a little to get a little and Old Scratch is no different. So, in exchange for the stardom he seeks, Jack agreed that he’d commit one human sacrifice in the name of his new demonic handler, paying for his glitz and glamour with not only his own eternal life engine, but by hijacking that of an innocent. Sounds kinda steep, but trust me, that’s nothing compared to the shit that Tom Cruise’s agent gets to keep him in the limelight and out of the looney bin.

Jack’s apparently not without a moral compass though (unlike Cruise…), as he punks out when it comes time to pay up on his Satanic loan. Not one to let a mere mortal get the best of him, Mephistopheles shows why he’s got the strongest pimp hand this side of Detroit by cursing his uncooperative (and still lumpy and mullet infested) minion with the following bad juju: every person that Jack makes eye contact with will be possessed by an unholy rage that can only be satisfied with the J Man’s violent and painful ceasing of life functions. With no one else to turn to and everybody in the world a potential enemy, the Jackster seeks out the one character who can possibly help him negate his contract with the lifeguard of the lake of fire: his holy amigo Aaron.

Because the Aaronator‘s one of those genuinely faithful preacher types who aren’t just in the clergy for the fast cars, loose women, free drugs and mile-a-minute adrenaline pumping excitement, his love for “God” is unwavering and he’s therefore unaffected by Jack’s “make people into bloodthirsty killers” eyeball curse thingy. Skeptical at first of his childhood friend’s claims, Father Aaron’s mind is soon changed when he witnesses the 56 flavors of J get assaulted by bad men with firearms and intentions of committing bodily harm! Though Jack guns down several of his pursuers (uhm, wait, didn’t this all start because he wasn’t willing to kill innocent people? I guess self-defense against possessed people doesn’t count?!), he winds up captured and tortured by the goons’ leader who ties the Big J to a chair and stabs him in the arm repeatedly with forks (looks painful and painfully cheesy at the same time) before preparing him for a lynchin’. This finally pushes Aaron to intervene, shooting the villain and freeing his pal. Still not 100% convinced, Aaron needs further proof of the Devil’s intentions, so Jack ties the corpse of the evil leader to a chair in the basement and proceeds to summon Satan himself into the vacant vessel… so a low level lump like Jack somehow got his hands on a demonic text and knows how to summon Lucifer? Is this an unholy handbook that everybody gets, or just shitheads like this guy?! Hell’s gotta be a little pickier in who they share their trade secrets with. Think if I tell Satan that I’m thinking about becoming his minion for fame and fortune he’ll hand over the keys to the Devilmobile?

While stuck in the dead guy’s form like some kind of amateur, Satan spends the time telling Jack that he’s fucked and one way or another he will bite into the unholy fishing lures of the fire below. He also goes on a tangent about how even now he and his minions are starting to take over the world, possessing the bodies of the greedy and the disenfranchised (i.e. criminals and that stinky homeless guy who sits at the end of the train with the 37 plastics bags filled with soiled clothing, left shoes and any other treasures he’s found in his wanderings) to lay waste to the innocent and unsuspecting sheep of the world. Kinda like Charlie Manson’s Helter Skelter idea without the racism and cotton picking.

Before he gets back to work on this whole “take over the world” project of his, Satan laughs maniacally like Grover on LSD while bleeding profusely from the head, then re-animates the bodies of all the people Jack’s been killing as of late and hiding in his basement. The not-so-dynamic duo hide in the attic, using a spell of invisibility to hide from the undead knights in Satan’s service (which, of course thanks to budget restraints, doesn’t mean that we can’t see them) until the ghouls pretty much run out of gas and go back to Cadaver Town… you know, right outside of Corpseville and about a mile south of the Carcass Flats.

JLo and A-Rod flee while they’ve got the chance, heading for Aaron’s aunt’s place to regroup and figure out what they’re supposed to do against the fucking devil. They kill a thief, discover the aunt missing and Aaron gets his balls tweaked by a very touchy-feely Bible (kinda ruins the point, but click the rolling head at the bottom of this page for this wacky little Easter Egg) before they pack up and go off to face the minions of the Devil in final combat, returning to the place Jack first signed his contract to try and null and void it in a trial by combat, “just like in nature”… except that in nature the animals don’t fight each other with chainsaws or throwing stars or nunchucks or shotguns… at least not the nature they show you on TV.

Not to give away the ending (now that’s a shock!), but things get weird, a bunch of demon ninja hooligans (reminiscent of the cultist thugs in The Final Sacrifice for you MST3K cinemasochists out there) show up to stop our heroes, Father Aaron shouts “Tell Satan he can kiss my black ass!” before unloading a batch of ‘b’-to-the-‘u’-to-the-‘c’-to-the-‘k’ shot into a guy’s chestal cavitiy and we’re left with the cookie-cutter “yep, it’s wide open for a sequel” ending that tries to be philosophical but, from the untalented lips of Shawn Scarbrough, instead sounds like something out of Plan 9, only less professional… and yes, there are things less professional than Ed Wood!

Matt Jaissle wrote and directed Back From Hell, and after watching it you can definitely see the man’s been influenced by some of the great gore whore wet dreams of the (then) recently deceased ‘80s. Not sure how long the process was of putting this beast together, but you know the Matt Attack was a graduate of Raimi University’s “Do what you can with what you’ve got” curriculum. Speaking as a former prisoner of the boonies, I know that Matt had to figure out a way he could excuse taking his movie from a setting of urban sprawl (where people expect you to pay out the ass if you’re burning the image of their masonry on film) to the front yards of America’s backbone (where people get goofy toothed over the concept that they’ll be able to show friends, family and door-to-door Witnesses that their house/barn/shed was used in a real movie). This is achieved with ease and more than a little clever thinking by giving Jack the whole “making eye contact with people makes them crave your beating heart” curse thing because the city’s no place to be if you’re trying to avoid people… believe me, that’s a subject I’ve molded my entire life around and everyday I question how it is that I convinced myself to relocate to a major metropolitan epicenter. So, there we have our excuse for the movie being shot in the middle of nowhere and utilizing a minimal cast. It’s simple, it’s different, it’s interesting, it’s perfect... unless he could simply avoid this by wearing Blue Blockers at all hours of the day, but I’m not sure if even their advanced UV blocking powers are enough to bypass the harmful radiation of the Morning Star. Besides, speaking as a Death God with an abnormally large brain containment vessel of my own, I’m sure Jack has trouble finding shades that fit comfortably anyway.

And for all the people who take one look at Jack and say, “Forsooth! How could one as rotund, unfashionable and grotesque as he be likened unto the famed and beauteous sirens and Gods of the sacred church of the Hollied Wood?! Pshaw! I say thee nay and bid you good day my friend of the syphilis addled brain!”, I must first request that you come down off your high horse before you fall and hurt yourself (to which I would laugh because that kind of thing kick starts my happy clusters). Once you’re ready to listen and you’ve started letting your logic centers fire again, realize this: why else do you think Captain Crap Sack had to make a deal with the fucking devil to become famous and accepted by people the world over?! It makes sense BECAUSE he’s so disgustingly plain! You don’t hire the homecoming king to play Jack, you hire the unattractive dumb fuck with the inexcusable ego and steaming pile of hidden self-doubt to play Jack! We’ve all known a Jack in our lives! For me, it was this shit bucket named Dennis…

Anyway, for those who didn’t pick up on that whole “Lumpy becomes Brad Pitt” connection, you’re welcome and I’m sorry if I shattered your illusions or anything. As for the rest of the movie, well, the gore was excessive and, though homemade, still done well and oddly charming in it’s own way. Gotta love violence too and Back From Hell gives us chainsaws, shotguns, sickles, maimings, spurtings, decomposed remains, crotch grabbing demon Bibles and all the other things that make life hum with the relaxing satisfaction of a Willie Nelson tune and a couple of mom’s magic brownies. You do have to wonder though how it’s possible that a guy can get this throat slit, only to have the blood spray back around into his face... Anyway, the one budget restraint that cannot be forgiven, no matter how much our friend Jaissle tries to bribe me with Back From Hell t-shirts, copious amounts of cannabis, or a starring roll in his next z-grade creature feature (*hint* not to say that he shouldn’t do these things anyway mind you *hint*), is the deplorable acting.

Though I place the blame squarely on the so-called actors in question (DuBois and Scarbrough need to be encased in a big solidified lump of spoiled milk and dropped into an old well filled with starved rats, cockroaches and rabid grannies), the entire movie is doomed to failure because of them. Lame actors are like drunk drivers, if they want to do this shit out in the desert or on an abandoned logging road out in the middle of the woods somewhere and risk their own existence in doing so, that’s fine. Grab yourself a couple bottles of Southern Comfort and a set of car keys or a copy of The Complete Works of Tennessee Williams and go to town. But, when you’re putting others in the path of your careless disregard for continued health and/or good taste, that’s criminal and you deserve to be treated as such to the fullest extent of vigilante pseudo law.

And so, the final judgment is cast. In a time before the Evil Dead trilogy became mainstream and crazy fun demon freak outs like the Night of the Demons series hadn’t even reached their first sequel, a couple of guys got together in the secluded armpit of Michigan and made a kooky little horror flick called Back From Hell. Few people will ever see it and of those only a small group will actually admit to liking it, but it will always be welcome as favorable company in the Tomb of Anubis… perhaps more so if the blood stains on Jack’s sweatshirt could have stayed consistent through the movie.