Film Review - Hellbender (2021)

Teenage wildling Izzy lives with her mother in the depths of the Catskill woodlands. Cocooned from social interaction due to an immune system disorder, she spends her days hiking, swimming, drawing, and smashing out dark and introspective folk metal bangers with her ultra-cool mum.

However, when her isolation is compromised she becomes irreparably drawn into the savage orbit of her deeply sinister heritage.

Hellbender is the latest (satanic) offering from the ridiculously talented family collective of Toby Poser and John and Zelda Adams. Following in the warmly received wake of The Deeper You Dig they have crafted a uniquely intimate and deceptively charming slice of earthy folk horror.

Humming with intellect, energy, and trippy enthusiasm it’s an infectious shot of sideshow dramatics that positively crackles with the spark of organic, fully autonomous, filmmaking. At times, Hellbender plays like a movie made for the sheer head-spinning joy of it. Fresh, funky, and fearless in its expressionist freedom and contagious artistic spirit.

What really surprises about Hellbender is the grim and gory heart that throbs at its core. Mischievous and playful, yes. However, its narrative undercurrents of mass infanticide, casual cannibalism, and supernatural survival instincts are full-on fucked up.

It feels like the cinematic equivalent of stumbling upon the soil-encrusted nature scrapbook of a sociopathic child. A psychedelic album of beauty and horror where pressed wildflowers merge with the bloodstains of bramble-pricked fingers. A surreal catalogue where moss encrusted pine cones and twig collages are flanked by squashed caterpillars and decapitated field mice.

The fact it retains tonal parity is an astonishing testament to delicate world-building and the naturalistic screen chemistry of the real-life relatives.

Both female leads are nothing short of exceptional. Swinging violently from intense familial devotion to primordial rivalry their performances are empoweringly brave and endearingly candid. Subsequently, this uncontrived fright flick does more to address the taboo surrounding mother-daughter conflict than any emotionally incontinent mainstream offering could ever hope for.

Described at one juncture as a cross between Kurt Cobain and a wet dog, Zelda Adams’ Izzy is a vivid amalgamation of sweet naivety and blossoming barbarism. A paradox of geeky awkwardness and undiluted self-confidence. A young woman who craves companionship and acceptance but is unable to diffuse the hard-wired dirty bomb of her inner beast.

Toby Poser totally owns her character warts and all. Unafraid to embrace the ugliness of patriarchal jealousy and revelling in the ferociousness of parental protection she rocks a demeanour of thinly veiled malevolence to the max. Like Kate Winslet in Mare of Easttown she shows zero investment in projecting an airbrushed distortion of feminity.

The segments where the pair of them jam together, Izzy on drums and her mother on bass, in gorgeously designed face paint, are a blast. Joyous and freewheeling they prove a smart way to emphasise the strong sense of unity they share. More importantly, they are a relatable catalyst in Izzy’s quest to seek outside approval. Later on, the scenes are cleverly mirrored when the two women barf up blood over each other’s faces whilst tripping balls on death-charged maggots. It’s a cunning juxtaposition, typical of the cinematic eloquence of the film in general.

The special effects of Hellbender are definitely problematic. Obviously hampered by the meager budget they just about cling on to the right side of visually palatable. When practical they co-exist comfortably within the overarching aesthetic of the film. Even the phantasmagorical depictions of premonitions and the hallucinatory acts of sprit world voyeurism gel in a whimsical 70’s way. However, much of the CGI is over ambitious and creates fractures in the structural integrity of the movie. It’s not fatal by any means, and conceptually they are more than solid, but it’s definitely an unwelcome distraction.

Hopefully, Hellbender will garner the attention it deserves and the Adams family will have a more spacious purse to dip into with their next project. I strongly suspect they are not the sort of creative unit to allow a bigger budget to swamp their transmissible alacrity for filmmaking, nor strangle their fertile imaginations.

This is DIY cinema at its very finest. Made by cinema aficionados who fully understand what constitutes an entertaining genre flick. Fashioned from raw honesty and genuine ebullience, Hellbender is a gauntlet thrown down to the lazy stagnation and boring regurgitation of studio-generated horror fare.