Movie Review: Bus Party to Hell (2017)

Synopsis: A group of passengers on a party bus heading to Burning Man are left stranded in the desert and are terrorized by a cannibalistic cult searching for their chosen one. Unable to escape or call for help, the few surviving passengers must find a way to survive the night while their tormentors, aided by their key-carrying bus driver, work to get inside the bus.

Who's in it? The movie stars Tara Reid, Jillian Newton, Shelby McCullough, Sadie Katz and ViDonna Michaels.

Review: My wife and I came across this movie a couple days ago and, since it sounded somewhat interesting, added it to our list. We had time to watch it last night and immediately regretted that decision.

So, general rule of thumb, if a moviehas only one reasonably-recognizable actor/actress then kills off that actor/actress after only a few minutes of screen time, that's typically not a good sign. And, shame on me, when they killed off Tara Reid's character not long after the movie started and without her having any impact on the overall plot, I should have listened to my own words of wisdom on the matter and immediately shut it off.

To be honest, the overall premise wasn't a bad one. A group of (mostly) unarmed bus passengers facing off against a group of killers had potential to make this a good horror movie. Had they decided to make this a dark comedy, I probably could have been OK with that too. Instead, the filmmakers decided to go way out there and make this into what I can only describe as well-disguised snuff film.

Look, I'm not normally a prude and have learned to live with nudity/sex when watching something in the horror genre, but I have my limits. And, I can tell you a movie that prominently (and repeatedly) features people having sex while being covered in blood and/or masturbating using severed body parts more than crosses that line in my book. In fact, I think the movie might have dedicated much more screen time to that than the cult's attempts to get inside the bus (or at least it seemed that way).

It takes a lot for me to feel uncomfortable watching a movie and I can say this film succeeded in that. Literally the only reason my wife and I finished this film was to see if the writers remembered there was supposed to be a plot and came up with an ending. For the record, they did but it was a very drawn out and somewhat crappy ending that did nothing to redeem the film.

Final Opinion: I'll give the movie this much credit - it was memorable. Unfortunately, it wasn't memorable for the right reasons. Unless you have some seriously perverted sexual fantasies, I suggest skipping this film.

My Grade: F