Hellbender

HELLBENDER

Directors - John Adams, Zelda Adams, Toby Poser

2021, USA

Writers – John Adams, Zelda Adams, Toby Poser

 

In the tradition of the best indie horror, this doesn't let a lack of budget compromise imagination and devotion to its ideas. Even its title has broader meaning, not just a superficial hokey-horror signpost: it refers to not only a breed of witches but also the rebel-rock duo the central mother and daughter form to pass-time and as a creative outlet. And the songs and music are highlights, adding fundamentally to the attitude and atmosphere, from defiant rock to deflated indie (drum, bass, sweet/shouty female vocals).

 

Made by the filmmaking gang The Adams Family and friends – if they aren’t in front of the camera, they’re behind it – this exudes the kind of understanding of its limitations and love of genre that prioritises themes, decent performances and a confidence in implication that make indie low-budget so rife with imagination. And which only makes the moments when it goes-for-broke and shocks with effects and offbeat detail all-the-more surprising. It’s already strong material before the delightful surprise appearance of a key.

 

It’s the same story as ‘The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw/BloodHarvest’, but with a modern folk horror take. It’s more ‘In the Earth’ than ‘The Witch’. A mother and daughter live isolated in the woods, contentedly, but the mother is off secretly making spells from nature and the daughter is starting to feel teenage restlessness.

 

Coming-of-age drama and horror are the soulmates, and ‘Hellbender’ benefits from real-life mum and daughter dynamics (Toby Poser and Zelda Adams). Despite the deep kinship they have, as symbolised at first by the band, this is a tale of how the younger generation will always usurp their elders, of how the secrets of a parent ferments rebellion. The resounding horror of ‘Hellbender’ is not just the killings but of the death of a close mother-daughter relationship.

 

For every dozen low-budget clown-faced killer indie, there is one like ‘Hellbender’ that that bristles with ideas and themes, that doesn’t condescend and utilises the genre to go to corners that the mainstream can’t get to.  It keeps a swift runtime and an even pace, padded out with diversions into heavy metal visions and more pensive bildungsroman reveries with indie music videos inclinations.  When it does do special effects, Adams knows to keep the edits curt so that their constraints don’t dwell.

 

Full of surprising detail and solid themes, but never trying to overreach, lots of mood and pretty woodland setting, a great soundtrack, ‘Hellbender’ is an entertaining and fascinating indie horror.