Devil’s Den

6Oct/100

Stop me if you’ve heard this, a few unsuspecting travelers come across a strip club in the middle of nowhere. The beer is flowin’ and the strippers are smokin’… but this ain’t no ordinary club; and by that I don’t mean all the girls are psychos! Ok, ok, it would be easy to sit back and compare this movie to probably my all-time favorite action/horror flick, From Dusk Til Dawn. But outside of what I mentioned a few other small things it’s quite different. I won’t say ‘better’ different, it’s just different.

A couple friends are on the road as part of a get rich scheme. They are trying to sell pills to naive college kids, include something that is supposed to be a sex inducer sort of like “Spanish Fly”. When they need to find a Guiney pig to see if these pills work, they just so happen to come across Devil’s Den, a strip club on a deserted road. It looks dead on the outside, but it’s live on the inside… at least it is for a while! Quinn and Nick take a seat, enjoy the show, and slip the hottest stripper one of their pills. When the pill takes effect Quinn thinks he’s in for the ride of his life, and damn, he has no idea what’s about to happen next! The stripper turns ugly, real ugly, and begins to take a liking to Quinn’s flesh. Luckily assassin Caitlin is there for the rescue. But this stripper isn’t the only freak working here; they all transform into some sort of vampire, or werewolf or demon and start wrecking all the patrons at the club.

With the help of former oxygen tank user Leonard, Caitlin and Quinn fight off the strippers, save the waitress who is having a horrible first day, and barricade themselves in a back room. Leonard seems to be the only one who knows what is going on in this place, as he was sent by a task force to kill the queen ghoul. Some task force though, they just sent one old black man to kill a ghoul. That’s right, these are not vampires, they are demonic, flesh eating ghouls! Luckily Leonard has a samurai sword which seems to be the best defense because bullets don’t quite work and the wooden chair leg Quinn uses is pretty pathetic.

When I originally got this movie from a friend I skimmed through and thought immediately that it would be a FDtD rip-off! While there were parts of it that definitely were, all writers/directors/producers take ideas from other movies to make their own. Hell James Cameron made Pocahontas with blue aliens! I can say outside of the 30 minutes of unnecessary dialogue that could have been cut (there is a 5 minute part about Zatoichi the blind swordsman), it kept me entertained. Kelly Hu looked great, and even though Devon Sawa looked like he was on a 10 day bender before he started filming, he was pretty comical throughout. Plus I have to mention Ken Foree (of Dawn of the Dead fame) was great as Leonard. It wasn’t an Oscar performance, but he played the bad-ass very well. There is a twist at the end which I didn’t see coming, but I can’t give that away in case you happen to catch this one late at night. Don’t search it out, but if you see it give the first 20 minutes a shot and see what you think. I give Devil’s Den 2.5 naked ghoulish strippers out of 5!