Incumbent governor John G. Harrison takes some drastic measures when his shitty morals begin to come back to haunt him. With racketeering charges and slipping numbers looming, he decides using the Keys of Solomon… yes, those ancient books which were gifted to Peter by Jesus of Nazareth and have the strength to bind the forces of Heaven and Hell (thank you opening text and narration!)… to ensure his reelection is a grand ol’ plan. Wielding unimaginable and dangerous power leads to plenty of torn-up corpses and places the security of the world in the hands of the governor’s baby-faced press representative Zack Alder when he discovers the horrifying bullshit his boss is up to. He’s been hooking up with the attorney general and plotting to take Harrison down when she gets her ass murdered by the demon the governor has unleashed. Zack and officer Lynn Russell (frustrated with her fellow officers refusal to look any deeper into the growing bodycount thanks to corruption and getting a quick look at the demonic killer) join together because there’s a whole lot on the line. Although, Zack just thinks it’s some occultists getting up to bullshit before he finally faces the facts. A church-sanctioned assassin is also drifting around, adding to the piles of corpses while tracking down the Keys but he disappears for a healthy chunk of the movie. The cutthroat world of politics is brought to life by some somewhat convincing New Yorkers and some less-then believable heroes as a genuine scumbag abuses biblical powers to his black heart’s content. Swinging well outside of its league with an over enthusiastic story, this political horror-thriller brings a low-rent charm because it refuses to admit it’s well outside of its budget. It jumps head first into complicated waters and presents the best damn product it can. I respect that. Hitting like an unused Kolchak script hammered into an X-Files investigation that couldn’t afford the FBI, Raising Hell is endlessly intriguing in its gall and hilariously melodramatic as the B-movie shenanigans are painted over in soap opera performances and some poor decisions. I mean, eventually you’d figure people would understand it’s not a great idea to threaten the governor with spilling his secrets. The long line of corpses should be a giveaway. A carefully obscured monster suit, the basement offices of the police force, dirt-cheap news footage, a really terrible British accent and location shooting because sets are not in the budget just make me love it more. It falls into the trap that something this eager usually does in that it can’t seem to narrow its focus and jumps all over the place to focus on characters that don’t really need much time and dragging scenes out that don’t really need to even exist. A general lack of suspense in its murder scenes and the aimless vibe add a level of sluggishness to things as well. Having said that, it’s a cost I’m willing to pay because of just how foolishly zealous it is. Sometimes you bat far out of your league and fail, but sometimes it's that failure that makes you so damn charming.
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