Seen in theater at Doc Club and Pub
(With John Adams and Toby Poser QnA)
This was basically made for me, super indie filmmaking with weird ass ideas, intimate charm and ultimately artsy execution, what is there not to love about Hellbender with its compelling mixing of witchcraft, the occult, heavy metal music and at the core of the film a extremely captivating mother and daughter relationship that at times reminds of Carrie to Lady Bird. Directed and acted by all four of the Adams family this picture aptly coin a Adams Family film is wrapped with a passion and a vision that only a artistic family like this could conjured up and execute this wildly yet passionately, sure some of the production here is rough even amaturish at times like the cgi, the lighting and especially some of the performances, yes the film at times seems to have so much on its hands thematically and ideas wise it kind of struggles to really put all the pieces together in a satisfactory way yet somehow it still works and lands on something not quite expected or perfect but somewhere that still sticks close to the heart of what Hellbender is about. After a while the roughness and flaws becomes tender and endearing, a sort of characteristic because of how it directly or indirectly fits in the context of the film which is about again a mother and a daughter, both of them inherited the powers and wisdom of ancient witches or something like that, born with supernatural senses that they can't rid of and so the film's dilemma plays out, should one accept themselves as they are no matter how destructive or dangerous or should they try to be what others perceived as normal and good, in this case what I love about this is that to us the occult witches elements is alien and cryptic but to the mother and daughter its a completely normal thing that they live and surrounds themselves with everyday sometimes acting as inspiration for the pair's heavy metal band of course named Hellbender or a source of either intrigued for the daughter played electrifyingly by Zelda Adams, a gate way for her to escape her captivity which in turn makes this source becomes a point of conflict between her and her mother played by Toby Poser who wishes to protect her and the world at large from her daughter's ever growing sinister powers, i feel the roughness of the film help grounds the familiarity and mudnanity of the world the pair lives in no matter how far the film strays into hallucinating dream sequences or ambiguous outrageous scenes of desperation that both bonds and separates the mother and the daughter even further and what most surprises me is that for the most part Hellbender is rather contemplative and mediative, taking its time to build horror through ponder and suspense rather then gore and thrills, sure there is blood here but its less splatter and rather the space that links the blood we all shared in someway or another that is the focus of Hellbender, most of the film's unsettlingness comes from the hardship of being a teenager or a mother and how each by force or by scarifice has to distant themselves from others and isolate themselves for the sake of their love ones but just heighten and exaggerated into a horror grammar and I dig it a lot. I think if you go into this with the wrong expectations you might find it boring and bewildering but dail it right and you'll get a pretty unique and expressive little modest horror flick, the Adams family here demonstrates that without a big budget there's always thought and ideas that will give your film's power, the mind and will of creation rather then bucks and demands will always win out no matter the limitations and Hellbender shows with unapologetic results how its done. Creeping, atmospheric, indie, thoughtful, meditative, bloody, unnerving and empathetic, this is one in particular where if you are like me and love arthouse films as much as you like horror you will find much to devour and savour with Hellbender and most of all be endlessly impressed and inspired by how the Adams family manages to humbly yet imaginatively concoct this memorable flick, certainly a film worth supporting even if just for that alone but am sure once you've seen the film you'll see that the entire family making this together is far from a novelty but a core warmth strength of why Hellbender works as well as it did in portraying family under demonic restrictions.
During the QnA after the film was over I told my mother who I took to watch this with me how I kind of saw me and her in the film and later she decides to tell John and Toby about what I said and it was hilarious, they laughed and in their fashion Toby praised my mother (a bit sarcastically lol) for bringing her son to watch their movie and of course John had to warn my mom to be careful of me also becoming a little Hellbender... what a great night 🤣
