Director Albert Pyun
Starring Michael Paré, Clare Kramer, Courtney Peldon, Deborah Van Valkenburgh & Roxy Gunn
Score 4/6

A soldier who has been fighting a long war is driven mad because he no longer believes in any purpose or righteous truth behind the killing. He comes home to a surreal world looking for his first and only love from his youth, believing she will rescue him from his demons. On the road to Edge City he encounters two seductive spree killers who oppose his efforts to find his love and the redemption he desperately seeks.

I’ve known about this movie for a while but just recently got a chance to watch it. It should be noted that Road to Hell is an unofficial sequel (or more accurately the spiritual sequel) to Walter Hill’s 1984 movie Streets of Fire, also at the time Streets of Fire was intended to be the first in a projected trilogy called “The Adventures of Tom Cody”, with two other planned titled The Far City and Cody’s Return. However, due Streets of Fire’s failure at the Box office the trilogy was never completed.

On a personal note, Streets of Fire was probably one of the first movies that I wanted to watch based purely on the soundtrack, when the movie was being played at a friendly neighbourhood DVD store. Road to Hell has a completely distinctive look and feel to Streets of Fire, that’s a testament to the progression of visual effects through the use of green screen as the entire movie was shot on a sound stage giving the movie a unique visual style a technique that was used to great effect on the television mini-series Sanctuary. Though those of you who might have watched Streets of Fire would be happy to know that Streets of Fire has a very similar soundtrack to the original movie. In certain scenes I can remember thinking that the violence was a little a brutal and thinking that people who agreed with Rose McGowan’s stance on x men apocalypse might not like this movie. Though with the overly graphic violence the filmmakers only showed the reaction to it rather than the violence itself, which makes for a more powerful moment.
Though Michael Pare returned in his role as Tom Cody and Deborah Van Valkenburgh as his sister, I enjoyed Joei Fulco’s performance as the Archangel Gabriel, I loved the opening monologue she had which ended up setting the movie on a narrative path that I really wasn’t expecting.