It’s always interesting going back and watching a famous director’s first film. When they were putting together their first short, or slumming it in the world of TV movies. You get to see what they were capable of before the Hollywood machine got hold of them. Before the budgets, the studio interference, the fame, the cocaine, and the increasingly questionable late-career decisions.
Of course, that comparison doesn’t really work here because (despite how it may appear) Wes Craven was already four films deep by the time he made Invitation to Hell. In fact, this came out the exact same year as A Nightmare on Elm Street. He’d already made The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, and Swamp Thing at this point!
First aired on ABC in May 1984, Invitation to Hell achieves the rare feat of somehow being kind of boring and shitty (you know standard made-for-tv dross), while also being completely fucking insane.
It’s one of those films where long stretches consist of people having flat conversations in aggressively beige rooms about joining a country club, only for the movie to suddenly remember it was made by Wes Craven and throw laser guns, demon children, and Hell dimensions at us.
The opening alone makes the whole thing worth talking about. A big-haired Susan Lucci gets hit by a car, immediately stands back up like the T-1000, and gestures dramatically at the driver, causing him to melt into a smoking corpse. Which is honestly one hell of a way to start a made-for-tv movie.
The story sees Matt Winslow (Robert Urich), an engineer with the sort of aggressively wholesome energy only 80s television could produce, relocate his family to the idyllic Californian suburb of Steaming Springs after taking a new job at a mysterious tech company called Micro-DigiTech.
Everything in Steaming Springs initially seems perfect: spotless houses, wealthy neighbours, endless sunshine, tennis courts, and enough pastel activewear to cause retinal damage. Maybe too perfect, too artificial and rehearsed. Invitation to Hell creates unease through artificial normality.
True enough, the deeper Matt gets absorbed into the community, the stranger things become. Everyone in town is also weirdly obsessed with joining an exclusive country club called “The Spring.” Residents begin acting emotionally hollow, people vanish under mysterious circumstances, and Matt’s own family start changing once they join the club themselves. His wife Patricia (Joanna Cassidy) suddenly develops the emotional warmth of a malfunctioning Alexa, while his children start behaving like tiny suburban pod people.
Oh and that country club? Well, turns out that it’s a fucking portal to Hell. Everyone who joins essentially sacrifices their individuality in exchange for wealth, comfort, and social status. Not exactly a subtle metaphor, but it works.
And then, after a certain point, the film just completely loses its mind. Later on we get:
- demonic children attacking people
- robotic security guards
- laser weapons
- a subterranean Hell dimension
- a fucking flamethrower
- synth music blasting over Satanic rituals
- and Robert Urich invading Hell in what looks suspiciously like a rejected Doctor Who costume
There’s even an entire subplot involving Matt designing a heat-resistant Venus exploration suit complete with AI threat detection software. Naturally, this spacesuit becomes crucial during the finale once Matt discovers the country club is actually a portal to another dimension.
The weirdest thing is that most of the film is actually pretty restrained. There are huge stretches where characters just awkwardly discuss promotions, social status, and country club memberships while everyone speaks with this emotionally sedated made-for-TV cadence.
The middle section drags quite a bit, largely because you work out what’s happening long before Matt does. There are only so many scenes of neighbours ominously insisting someone “join the club” before you start wanting Matt to either uncover the conspiracy or get sacrificed already. It’s like playing a board game with a moron, and the board game isn’t even that complex.
But honestly, the bizarre soap opera atmosphere carries a lot of the film. Susan Lucci in particular seems fully aware of how ridiculous the material is and wisely decides to lean directly into it. As demonic club owner Jessica Jones, she glides around looking impossibly glamorous while recruiting suburbanites into eternal damnation like she’s hosting the world’s most evil wine tasting. Every scene involving her feels half soap opera, half fever dream.
Robert Urich actually holds the whole thing together surprisingly well. He plays Matt with enough sincerity that the increasingly absurd plot developments never completely collapse under their own stupidity. Joanna Cassidy mostly exists to look distressed and vaguely possessed, while a young Soleil Moon Frye runs around acting demonic, shortly before becoming permanently associated with Punky Brewster. Which is admittedly quite funny in hindsight.
Visually, the film has that same uncanny plastic sheen a lot of 80s TV horror possessed. Bright Californian exteriors clash against foggy dream spaces, strange neon lighting, and increasingly surreal imagery once Matt begins uncovering what “The Spring” actually is.
The final act especially feels like Craven suddenly remembered he directed The Hills Have Eyes and decided to inject pure chaos directly into the film’s bloodstream.
Hell itself resembles a cross between a Satanic spa retreat and a low-budget sci-fi convention attraction, filled with glowing red caverns, imprisoned souls, and enough smoke machines to suffocate a small village. It’s simultaneously ridiculous and oddly effective in the way only practical-effects-heavy 80s horror can be.
All in all, Invitation to Hell is a really uneven affair. The tone shifts constantly between satire, horror, camp, science-fiction, and outright nonsense. But somehow the film’s bizarre confidence stops it from completely falling apart.
And I’ll always take an interesting mess over a polished but forgettable film. There’s something deeply entertaining about watching Wes Craven turn suburban yuppie culture into literal Hell complete with synth music, demon children, and country club memberships. Which probably wasn’t that far removed from reality in 1984.
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