Charlotte (Shelia Stanfield) has been cheating on her husband Matt
(Tony Gschwend) ... well, shit happens, but he doesn't take it lightly at
all, quite the contrary, he ties her up, threatens her with a gun, and
forces her to call her lover (R.L. Davis). Next door, two guys (Chris
Haggins, David Prince) have kidnapped a cute hitchhiker (Colleen Haley) to
... well, they really haven't thought this one through, but she IS cute. Yet
next door, we have Patricia (Katie Hays), a pill-popping spinster who's
still living with her mother. Now she gets it that there's something wrong
in the neighbourhood, and by simply picking up the phone and dialing the
right number (911 for example), she could make a world of a difference -
because she doesn't, because she's mad, her mother's dead (but her corpse
is still lying in her bed), and she's hearing voices, which usually tell
her to do all the wrong things ... The Devil Lives in Hot
Springs is a fun film, basically because it doesn't give a ratfart
about genre conventions, instead takes a few genre mainstays and blends
them in a most unusual (and often ironic) way - without ever losing its
plot over its very convoluted storytelling. Add to this a subtle but
effective directorial effort and a very decent cast playing fleshed-out
characters, and you've got yourself a pretty cool movie ...
|