Horror Movie Review: Ascent To Hell (2014)

Featuring a dumb and uninteresting story, lifeless characters, some dodgy acting, and some really ugly visuals, Ascent to Hell is bad film. However, what makes it worse is that the over-arching concept, while familiar to the classic horror fan, is solid and with a bit more creativity, could have been notable.

Directed by Dena Hysell-Cornejo, who co-wrote it with Isak Borg and Golan Ramraz, Ascent to Hell stars Azura Skye as Kate, a realtor given a specific task. Sell a rundown New York factory building to a group of rich investors. A task way beyond her skill set, but the seller asked for her specifically, so she must. Which would ring alarm bells for most, except money talks, and Kate wants to further her career.

Guess what? It’s haunted and once on a specific floor, the group that includes Wesley (Cayleb Long), Mr. Browning (Bill Sage), Mary (Taylor Black), Roman (John Hennigan), and a few others, are trapped. You see, a long time ago a tragic accident happened in this factory, on this specific floor, and the evil behind it isn’t finished. If Kate and the others are to survive, they’re going to have uncover the dark truth and bring the person responsible into the light.

It is a boring as it sounds, if not actually worse, as all we have here is a bog-standard paranormal horror that has forgettable characters picked off at random. The tragedy and how it links to those within could have been interesting, it could have been something worth exploring, it could have been what the film grounds itself with. Instead, what we get is a half-arsed mystery that is so obvious, based off the insistence that our main star be the one to show the investors about.

Oh, I wonder if she has some historic links to the factory. Go figure.

So, with that offering no entertainment, we’re left with very basic characters dealing with very basic supernatural scares. Nothing of which will actually frighten, least of all because the effects are often so poor. It also doesn’t help that the entire film has a grey and brown tint to it. At first, I thought it was the film trying to express a different time the characters were now in, which is something briefly played around with, but it’s not. It’s just an ugly film.

It’s also really boring and ends up sputtering to a disappointing finale. Add that it also stops making any sense, and you can see why this one to avoid.