East Hell is a short comedy-horror film from 2017. It tells a simple story. Two goth girls try to summon a demon to curse their high school tormentors. Meanwhile, they are babysitting a boy who tries to stop them. Eventually, a female demon shows up and she thinks the girls are just as lame as the bullies are. She gives the boy a loaded gun, like demons do. You see: the boy is way cooler than the girls!
The film was produced by Carver Diserens who seems to have a successful career working in various capacities of production. It stars Alexandra Noland, Allison Winn, and Lauren Cipoletti, who all seem to be doing well in the business. The little boy is played by Cole Krell.
But East Hell seems like Callum Smith‘s baby. He wrote and directed it. Looking at IMDb, you’d think he mostly disappeared. But like most talented filmmakers, he is simply doing work that doesn’t show up in that database. He seems to work primarily in the gaming industry where he focuses on directing the voice actors. He’s also made a science fiction short, Haxxors, which I have not been able to find.
Films like East Hell present Christianity as a war of good versus evil. This is one reason I especially love Catholic horror. It’s clean. What stops me from following the religion is that it’s silly. The world is imperfect because God gave humans free will. But God also created the Devil to temp humans because apparently it isn’t acceptable to just give humans a fair choice with their free will. And God knows everything so he doesn’t actually need to do any of this. And humans are actually so clueless that they would make deals with the Devil. So, as religion: stupid. As film, stupendous!
Of course, East Hell also works as an allegory of high school outcasts. But I try not to think about this kind of stuff too much. The moment you try to make a film an explicit metaphor, you lose the film and gain a George Lakoff lecture. So my advice: just watch the film!
East Hell (2017) via IMDb under Fair Use.