I decided to watch this movie solely because it had Katharine Isabelle in it. And it turned out that the movie was every bit as bad as I had expected it to be!The storyline was straight forward, albeit generic and actually somewhat odd, as most of the things going on made little sense. You don't connect with any of the characters in the movie, as they are emotionless one-dimensional puppets milling around at the whim of director Penelope Buitenhuis.Miguel Ferrer did a fairly adequate job with his role, despite having next to nothing to work with. As for Katharine Isabelle, not that outstanding in this movie.The special effects in the movie were fairly alright, although you shouldn't hold your breath for anything spectacular.All in all, then "Hard Ride to Hell" is not really worth the effort, as there are far better horror movies available to pick from.

Hard Ride to Hell is set in Texas & starts as a group of teenage friends travel through the open isolated desert wastelands in their camper van when they pull over for the night & meet Bob (Brent Stait) a travelling salesman who sells knives. Bedding down for the night the dopey Dirk (Brandon Jay McLaren) decides to wander off to go to the toilet & stumbles upon a gang of Satan worshipping bikers sacrificing some young girls & eating their flesh, the biker's hear Dirk & go after him. Dirk heads straight for the camper van & his friends which lead the cannibal biker's to them as well & they are all held hostage, beaten, tortured & killed. The biker's leader Jefé (Miguel Ferrer) is looking to father the child of Satan, the Antichrist himself & decides that the pretty young Tessa (Laura Mennell) will do so spares her & her boyfriend who sets out to fight back against the biker's & save himself & the love of his life but the biker's have dark supernatural power's that make them nearly impossible to kill...Co-written & directed Penelope Buitenhuis this supernatural horror action thriller isn't too bad but at the same time will struggle to be remembered as a classic, Hard Ride to Hell is passable low budget straight-to-video fare that is maybe better than usual for this type of film but that in itself isn't saying a lot. This runs a fairly predictable path, teenagers get stuck in the open desert & come under attack from some various threat, in this case Satan worshipping cannibal biker's. It moves along at a fair pace, it has a few decent moments in it, some gore, there's a bit action & some vehicle stunts but I found it quite forgettable & nothing special without being utterly terrible. The only real problem I had was that Dirk remains awfully calm considering he has had his arm cut off & I salute his ability to crack a joke at any given moment despite missing an arm & the fact that the biker's can only be killed inside a Church on Holy ground & just by some complete coincidence the survivors decide to hide & fight it out inside a Church yet not knowing about their weakness. Oh, & I don't understand why Jefé just doesn't kill Bob at the end when he has the chance but, you know, whatever.There's a bit of gore here, an arm is chopped off, someone is made to walk over broken glass, there are a few stabbings, some chainsaw mayhem at the end as hands are cut off & people are sliced open but like the rest of the film while it's entertaining enough it's forgettable & doesn't leave much of an impression. The supernatural & action aspects aren't particularly well balanced but at least there's something happening more often than not. This is actually quite similar in theme to the classic Race with the Devil (1975) but is maybe a touch more generic.Probably shot on a low budget this has decent production values & is reasonably well made. The acting is nothing special with Miguel Ferrer who played the guy in Robocop (1987) who gets kneecapped the only face I recognised, he gets to shout & say all sorts of evil sounding lines & has fun with it but like everything else about Hard Ride to Hell he's forgettable.Hard Ride to Hell is a better than average straight-to-video low budget horror thriller that is mildly entertaining for what it is but I would struggle to say that it's a classic or anywhere near approaching one. You could do worse but then again you could do better.

Bikers and horror are two things that has been done several times. One of the best loved examples is the 1975 classic "Race With The Devil" starring Peter Fonda, with the British oddity "Psychomania" right behind it. It makes since really-hot rides and horror elements mixed together sounds like a fun mix, and in the right hands it can be. Unfortunately, "Hard Ride to Hell" isn't a fun movie at all.A group of family and friends (including "Ginger Snaps" star and all around attractive lady Katherine Isabelle) are on an camping trip through Texas. Well, it seems that buddy Dirk (Brandon Jay McLaren) witnesses a ritual being performed by a Satanic Biker Gang led by a one eyed creep named Jefé (Miguel Ferrer), and the next thing you know, they are being pursued by these heretic hog-riders."Hard Ride to Hell" comes from Vivendi, a studio that gave us the pretty dull and generic "Backwoods." Unlike that movie, this movie actually delivers in the gore and nudity department, with hunks of flesh being bitten off, arms being lopped off with a chainsaw, and more nasty surprises. Sadly, that's all it has going for it. Like what? Well, at least "Backwoods" had passable performances. Ferrer, who is usually a great actor, here phones it in, looking like he's about to fall asleep at any given moment, and seems like he's only there for a paycheck. Isabelle does a fine job for a while-until the third act comes in, and she inexplicably becomes a cowardly comic relief character. There's no reason given as to why-it just happens, and it's so abrupt that it comes off a really lazy writing.The biggest problem though, is that director Penelope Buitenhuis (herself a veteran of directing TV productions) and the writers have no idea what made the movies they are paying tribute to (the aforementioned "Race With the Devil" in particular) so great. They think "Hey, tits and violence is what the people want!" However, they forget it takes more than that for a movie like this to work. You need something that really stands out, and this has almost nothing that stands out. The third act gives the viewer a few fun moments, but it ends up feeling like "From Dusk Till Dawn"-if that movie was really bad and felt like it was made for the ScyFy channel.It's too bad, because with better direction, acting and writing, this could have been a fun time. Instead, it's nothing but a pretender to the throne. Skip it.

This is a very solid DTV movie. In fact, it could've been a part of those Masters of Horror series had it been shorter and tighter, the atmosphere is exactly that. The pacing is fast, the stuff that's supposed to be funny is funny, and what's meant to be scary - is scary enough. Hard Ride to Hell doesn't just feel like some grindhouse movie, it feels exactly like a sequel to From Dusk Til Dawn. I wasn't bored for a minute. The presence of Miguel Ferrer adds to it, but doesn't overshadow the movie itself, which says something about the director. Look at her resume, at least by now she definitely knows how to make a movie look good.