Pride Month: Schlocky Slasher Fun in “Hellbent”
Not every horror movie needs to be a thoughtful social commentary, and not every gay movie needs to be a coming out story. When you need a fun slasher movie that just happens to be about a group of gay friends, Hellbent (2004, Prime Video) is here for you. Shot so low budget it makes your kids’ Tik Tok videos look professional, this is a movie for horror fans who like the victims dumb, the acting wooden, and the blood spurty.
Hellbent opens with the murder of a (gay) couple making out in a car in the wee hours of Halloween morning. We never see the killer, but we know he has a very sharp scythe and probably goes to the gym. Flash forward to later in the day. Eddie (Dylan Fergus) works at a police station as a…something…where his sister (an actual cop) also works. She tells him about the double murder and Eddie is grossed-out but intrigued. He leaves work to get ready for a Halloween party in L.A.’s famously gay West Hollywood neighborhood and dresses up as a cop in his dad’s old uniform. Nothing weird here! Once he meets up with his friends, we have our gaggle of horror trope pals ripe and ready for slaughter: bisexual, drug enthusiast Chaz (Andrew Levitas), baby-faced love puppy Joey (Hank Harris), and cross-dressing-for-Halloween-because-why? Tobey (Matt Phillips). None of the characters has a backstory, which will help you avoid becoming emotionally attached.
The foursome head out to WeHo, but first they have to stop at the site of the double-murder. Don’t ask why because a)no reason is given, and b)does it matter? The killer is still there, probably hoping someone will invite him to a Halloween party. Has the killer been there the whole time? Did he go home to sharpen his scythe? Does he have a day job? What gym does he go to?
The pals see the killer and think he’s cruising, so they do what any healthy young adults would do at the scene of a very recent and very vicious murder: they moon the killer. These crazy guys!
Our foursome, who definitely should rely on their looks rather than their brains to get by in life, head to the massive WeHo party. The audience is treated to a mini-montage of partygoers who run the gamut of gay stereotypes and cliches. Maybe this sequence is meant to be titillating, but anyone who has ever been to a grown-up Halloween party will hardly be shocked. The group immediately splits up, breaking one of the cardinal horror movie rules for survival.
And now it’s time to say goodbye to our friends, one by one.
Each of the foursome tries to hook up for the night. Each of the foursome has zero game. Like, zero. It’s cringeworthy how bad each of them is at pulling. In real life, it’s doubtful that on a night like this, at a party like this, in a neighborhood like West Hollywood, any of these guys would get a phone number. Alas, our movie is much more optimistic, and also the plot needs potential love interests in order to move everyone forward.
In between attempts to score that would make a middle school dance look hot and heavy, our guys are taken out one by one. And only our guys. Mooning bad guys is never a good idea! They will literally hunt you down even in the middle of a massive party full of thousands of people crammed bare chest to bare chest. Plenty of other party-goers would make excellent victims, but our killer friend has his eyes on the prize.
Hellbent works as a gay movie in that it just happens to be about gay guys. Change the gender of a character and you could easily have literally any other slasher flick. In that sense, Hellbent scores high on the Incluvie scale. No sad coming out stories with kids being disowned by terrible parents. No school bullying. The killer doesn’t seem particularly interested in killing anyone because they’re gay. His primary motive for our foursome really is that they mooned him on his turf.
As mentioned above, you have your fill of gay cliches, including but not limited to leather outfits and bare chests. So. Many. Bare. Chests. Unfortunately, the entire cast is White and most of the extras seem to be White, too. So, no Incluvie points there.
As a slasher film, the budget for Hellbent looks like it was equal to what a middle class suburban family spends on Halloween decorations. The gore is mostly of the bloodied-up props variety, with well-placed cutaways thrown in so that you can’t examine the effects too closely. Blood spurts out a lot in ways that nature never intended, and sometimes you see a headless corpse. Game of Thrones is more gory than Hellbent.
The plot, such as it is, is by-the-numbers for a slasher movie, complete with killer-breaking-through-the-door and an ending that’s clearly meant to set up Hellbent 2. Perhaps the filmmakers though this work of art was too precious and beloved to ruin with a sequel, but we can cross our fingers and hope.
All said, this is a fun movie that is absolutely not to be taken seriously. There are so many heteronormative B-grade slasher films out there, it’s nice to see the gay community finally get one of their own.
