Director – Paul Campion (The Devil’s Rock, Eel Girl)
Starring – Paul Campion, Pete Connell (Catting, Hermaphrodroid), and Stephanie Ratcliff (Severance, The Bold and the Beautiful)
Release Date – 2006
Rating – 3/5
I’ve tried to break away from the typical horror trends this month and dive into movies I’ve had for sometime but never watched. This really took off after I watched the sci-fi horror comedy Inhumanwich! which is my favorite of the month so far. I decided to dig through some of my totes in storage to see what else I had collected over the years and never watched.
That’s when I found Night of the Hell Hamsters. This 2006 short film was one I added to my collection a couple years ago when I bought a stack of movies from someone. A few of them were movies I’ve wanted for years but this one was a bonus. I’m glad I finally dug into it because it was a fun one to add to my October horror binge.
**Spoiler Alert** The film follows a babysitter who invites her boyfriend over after the kids go to sleep. They decide to play around with an ouija board but things take a dark turn when he is accidentally bit by a hamster and the blood spills on the board. This inadvertanly starts the apocalypse turning the hamsters into flesh eating monsters. **Spoiler Alert**
You don’t expect a genre defining film from a movie titled Night of the Hell Hamsters but you do expect off the wall humor while mainting that drive-in era horror. For the most part that is exactly what this film is but it would have been so much better if it embraced itself a little more and offered up a few more laughs.
The acting in this one is decent but the cast has plenty of room for growth and improvement. I liked the characters and they did a solid enough job moving the story along but the characters could really use some personality and character defining traits that made them stand out.
The story for this one is fun and really captures that late night movie vibe. I love the atmosphere and the story but I really think it would have been even more memorable if it embraced the funny side of the story and delivered a few laughs along the way.
Finally, this is a bloody one with plenty of practical effects and some creature action. I loved the look of the creature. The film is obviously a no-budget short but they worked with what they had and it worked. Overall, Night of the Hell Hamsters is a fun short that takes the viewer back to a time when late night was the best time to watch cheap horror flicks. It has that drive-in era atmosphere and a fairly entertaining story. It’s a damn shame this one didn’t get the feature length treatment. I loved it.
