Don’t you hate it when a band of sex-crazed cult members with raccoon eyes surround your party bus and try to dismember everyone on board?
That’s the big-time buzzkill that befalls a group of twenty-somethings in Party Bus to Hell, a horror flick that may make you think twice before booking your next vacation.
The film “stars” Tara Reid, who’s probably best known for her role as the millionaire’s wife, Bunny, in The Big Lebowski. If you’re a Tara Reid fan don’t get too excited though, she gets all of three minutes of screen time.
“The film ‘stars’ Tara Reid … If you’re a Tara Reid fan don’t get too excited though, she gets all of three minutes of screen time.”
As the film opens, Reid’s character, Darby, is in the middle of the desert, fighting for her life against some dude with some uncanny powers. Then, she’s warning others that there’s an invisible force in the desert that can read a person’s thoughts and fears. Suddenly, a pair of angry mummies pop up out of nowhere, no doubt the work of that dastardly invisible force.
The story soon shifts to the passengers aboard a bus bound for the Burning Man fest in Black Rock Desert, Nevada, who are anticipating a weekend of unbridled debauchery. But as you might suspect it doesn’t take long for things go terribly sideways.
When their decidedly odd bus driver hits something in the road and then goes AWOL during an unscheduled pitstop, the self-indulgent travelers find themselves stranded in a remote part of the desert where there’s no cell phone reception. Isolated and cut off from outside communication, the partiers are sitting ducks for the evil that lies in wait.
“The passengers are bound for the Burning Man fest in Black Rock Desert, Nevada, and most of them anticipate a weekend of unbridled debauchery…”
Things go really haywire when the stalled vehicle comes under siege by a depraved band of cult members, who, like the bus passengers, somehow manage to display a fair amount of T&A.
One by one, the unlucky bus riders meet gruesome demises, and bodily organs are harvested as dinner entrees. Meanwhile, the cult goons maintain an agenda of their own, having somehow zeroed in on one passenger on the bus who is thought to be their “chosen one.” As you might imagine, further carnage ensues and things look pretty desperate for the remaining ones as their number keeps getting whittled down.
Billed as a horror-comedy, Party Bus to Hell features lots of silly humor sprinkled throughout the story, and in a film like this what other kind of humor would you expect? As schlock-o-rama horror films go, this one might be a little too rough around the edges even for the neighborhood drive-in or grind house, if such things even exist anymore. But fans of campy horror flicks who have an ironic appreciation for low-budget B-movies may find this one right up their alley.
If so, turn off your brain, pour yourself an off-brand beer and enjoy.
Party Bus to Hell (2017) Directed by Rolfe Kanefsky, written by Rolfe Kanefsky and Michael Mahal, starring Tara Reid, Devanny Pinn, Sadie Katz, Elissa Dowling, Aaron Groben, Nicholas George, Ben Stobber and Brian Blu.
6 1/2 out of 10
