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Very well executed

Absolutely Fantastic

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Hell's Highway: True Story of Highway Safety Films (2003) ** (out of 4)Pretty disappointing documentary taking a look at the Highway Safety Films of the 60s and 70s. I was really looking forward to this thing but nothing really worked out too well. The interviews were rather boring, which is what really killed this. The film picks up in the final fifteen-minutes when we hear debates on whether these films did any good or not. I personally found the actual videos to be nothing more than offensive, tasteless scare tactics. Footage included one film where cops flips over a car to discover a dead baby that has been smashed to death. There are countless other bloody clips where people's heads are stuck through windshields and so on.

A great idea,but a rather shaky production.Great interviews with members of the Foundation,and video archivists.They missed the chance to possibly interview those who appeared in the films (as victims) and those who recreated scenes in their films (like Wheels of Tragedy).But overall,thank goodness this genre has been given a new voice.Kids today laugh at death and blood.Society has felt it better to shield kids from the reality of death and agony rather than shock them/damage them,with the truth.Death isn't pretty,but its reality.Many thousands die every year,and millions are injured....what better subject to showcase than the fact that car crashes kill and maim American lives.For those who feel that sacraficing even one soldier in Iraq or Afganistan is wrong,just stop and think....how many Americans die in just ONE day on our roads? And nothing our "mighty" SUVs,pickups,semis,muscle cars or exotic imports can prevent.People die in EVERY vehicle,in every state and in every town.And over time,in every street.Think about that next time you tool around town talking on the cell phone or adjusting your radio knob.Take the advice these films were meant to give...think,use your head,and fear for your life.You will be a much safer driver as a result.

I was shown one of these scare films in the mid-80s and believe they are enormously effective. This documentary is about a fascinating topic, but it's point of view promotes the idea that the films don't work. I could not disagree more. After seeing the real result of speeding, or going through a stop sign in one of these films in a high school driver's ed class I drove MUCH more carefully as a teenager. Those bloody corpses smashed into the windshield are so disgusting I believe I'm still the cautious driver I am today because of them. THE TACTIC WORKS. We live in an era when corporate media and the government believe the public is too queasy to see our war dead from Iraq. And those are just coffins! The more informed we are about the real consequences of our actions the better off we are.

"Hell's Highway" is a documentary focusing on the men who created the now-infamous highway safety films of the mid-twentieth century, in particular those involved with the Highway Safety Foundation (HSF) during its life as a procurer of the macabre as an educational tool. The film's director, Bret Wood, manages to capture the audience's interest without ever guiding their thoughts or beliefs towards a discernible argument or standpoint. We as an audience are never led to think or feel in a certain way about the film's subject, a characteristic that will be lauded by some and looked down upon by others. While the neutral position taken by Wood may seem like a noble endeavor, it unfortunately causes the documentary to be hollow at its center, and the viewer is left to feel that the only reason he or she is watching it is to see the usually shocking safety films contained within. Doc lovers will probably recognize the lack of form that this hollowness forces upon the film, causing it to not live up to expectations, while the casual viewer may find greater entertainment value in it, but will more than likely still recognize the empty space at the film's core.Another flaw of this film is its over-reliance on clips from the actual highway safety films produced by the HSF and its lack of supporting evidence and arguments from interviews. The interviewees seem like they have a lot to say, but are never given the opportunity to fully express their ideas and thoughts behind the making of the safety films. Instead, Wood inserts usually the most shocking scenes from the films being mentioned for sheer entertainment purposes, as if he were afraid that the audience would lose interest in the doc's subject matter.In addition to this, the film suffers from being overly-long and drawn out. At a running time of approximately ninety minutes, this film sets out to stretch a subject a little too thinly over a lengthy period of time. It is more than likely due to Wood's hesitance to take a stance on his subject that causes the film to seem extended beyond its limits. One cannot help but wondering what the film would be like if it followed a more rhetorical or dramatic arc, rather than focusing on interview footage that has a tendency to beat around the bush, so to speak. The film's final third suffers the most from this forced extension of time and topic as it skews into mentioning the other safety films produced by the HSF as it began to expand that had little or nothing to do with automobile accidents or cautions. The section on the HSF's rumored involvement with pornographic films seems like a complete digression and an ignorance of the doc's central idea and topic. And while the safety films dealing with shoplifters, child molesters, and the like are interesting in their own right, their presence in the film as a whole seems awkward and out of place.Overall, this is an interesting film dealing with an extremely interesting subject. Its untraditional and neutral approach to its subject is a detriment, though, as is its overly-long running time. As a documentary, it succeeds on some levels but fails on more, but as an opportunity to see some of the most shocking and amazing highway safety films ever produced, it will definitely not disappoint.