Portal To Hell!! (Short, 2015)
Starring Roddy Piper, Laura Robinson, Matt Watts
Directed by Vivieno Caldinelli
The film is making its world premiere at TIFF 2015
It’s a little tough to write this one up without a few tears welling up in my eyes – as a longtime fan of professional wrestling, there were few (if any), that contained the personality and sheer ability to bring a house down like the “Rowdy One,” Roddy Piper. Splitting the later years of his career between the squared circle and the big (and little) screens, he entertained like nobody’s business, and just being able to check out his final piece of work: Portal To Hell!!, the short film from director Vivieno Caldinelli was a true joy, and made me smile (and cry) at the guy who was more than just an on-screen personality. If you ever had the pleasure to meet him in person, you’d never forget it. This one’s for the Scotsman.
Piper plays Jack, the maintenance man of a run down apartment complex, and is seemingly never at peace – while a relentless string of service calls are the bane of his existence, they’re nothing in comparison to what he’s about to deal with in the basement. While checking out the building’s continuous power-outage issues, he stumbles upon two underwear-clad kooks in a ceremonial chalk circle attempting to summon the beast Cthulu, while opening a portal to the Lovecraftian world of Ry’leh. Jack now has to figure out a way to not only close this gateway forever, but keep his tenants safe, and manage to keep the building from turning into a shambles.
While only a short 11 minutes, this quickie is filled with laughs, language and gore that will surely entertain those on the hunt for a good watch. Piper dominates in his lead role, and has the stuff here to make you bust out laughing, or wipe away the tears while remembering a guy who came to kick ass, minus the bubblegum. I can’t recommend this one enough to fans of the guy in the kilt, or anyone else who likes a little creature-feature on the side. Call me biased on this one, but 5 on the ranking scale just isn’t enough of a tribute to the Hot Rod.
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Film
Categorized:Reviews
