My quick rating – 3.5/10. If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if a man with the fashion sense of a Vegas street magician made a deal with the literal Devil, 7 Days to Hell finally answers that burning question. Great, now I can shift my mental energy back to more productive things, like dusting my Ethernet cables.
JJ (Shane Woodson) has exactly one week to collect seven souls for Hellena (Andrea Garces Lopez), a surprisingly chill devil who decorates Hell like a gothic Sandals resort staffed entirely by models. Honestly, if the afterlife looked like this, Sunday morning attendance would drop harder than Blockbuster stock.
It’s a low-budget ride and wastes no time proving it. JJ’s second soul-gathering task? Turn $100 into $5,000 without killing anyone. How that relates to collecting souls is never explained, but hey, logic took its own vacation for this shoot. Naturally, he lands in a poker game that plays like a discount Rounders recreation directed entirely from memory after One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.
Lucy (Natasha Stricklin), Hellena’s minion, is the film’s real MVP — part guardian angel, part plot GPS. Without her steering JJ through his week-long disaster, the movie would collapse under the weight of his chain-smoking and his wardrobe choices. I swear, Woodson looks like he lost a bet and had to wear the wardrobe equivalent of a dare.
But then comes the subplot no one asked for: JJ falls instantly in love with a hooker named Charlotte (Denise Milfort), and before you can say “this feels wildly unearned,” they’re getting married in the single dumbest ceremony ever put on film. And because the universe hates us just a little, their vows are sung, yes, karaoke-style, while the movie grinds to a halt. It’s like Woodson decided, “We could show more kills… or we could have Auto-Tune and a love story written on a napkin.” Bold choice. Not a good one, but bold.
Once JJ wins his 5K, he immediately blows it like he’s a lottery winner with 24 hours to live. The club sequence is a highlight, featuring a band that looks like the high-school talent-show losers who were told they could still “chase the dream.” It’s gloriously awkward, and therefore one of the more entertaining moments.
Woodson stars, writes, and directs — proof that sometimes doing all three doesn’t mean doing them well. The writing is serviceable, the directing works within a budget that probably couldn’t cover a Taco Bell run, and the gore actually looks decent. Credit where it’s due: for a movie this cheap, the headshots are surprisingly respectable.
The real problem is JJ himself. Woodson just doesn’t sell the role, and when 7 Days to Hell leans into the “love conquers the devil” angle, it plays like a parody that forgot to tell the audience it’s a parody. Add nonstop smoking, goofy romance, and dialogue that feels intentionally silly but lands accidentally silly, and you get a film that’s definitely more fun to describe than to sit through.

Bottom end of a 4 from me — and honestly, that’s me rounding up out of goodwill.
Log in to manage Simkl watchlist



