HELL’S HIGHWAY: THE TRUE STORY OF HIGHWAY SAFETY FILMS

Critically-acclaimed upon it’s 2003 theatrical release, HELL'S HIGHWAY: THE TRUE STORY OF HIGHWAY SAFETY FILMS is a morbidly curious exploration of the shocking driver education films of yesteryear. Produced between 1959 and 1979 in Mansfield, Ohio, films such as Signal 30 encouraged safety by force-feeding high school kids color footage of careless driving’s dark consequences: blood-stained wreckage, injured bodies, fresh corpses. In the 1970s and ‘80s, these traumatic films disappeared from the American classroom and assumed an almost mythical status. HELL'S HIGHWAY unearths these artifacts of grim Americana and interviews the filmmakers responsible for this radical educational movement.

Originally produced in standard-definition video, this new version of HELL'S HIGHWAY has been reconstructed through the remastering of the original 16mm interview footage, as well as new restorations of the original educational films, which appear throughout the documentary.