🟨 Hellbent (2004) Review - One Big Hunky Devil | Film Waffle

Hellbent (2004) directed by Paul Etheredge-Ouzts

As a gay kid growing up and loving horror, people recommended Hellbent to me a lot.

"Have you seen Hellbent? I bet you'd love it!"

"You need to watch Hellbent if you haven't. It's really good!"

"If you love horror and slashers, you need to watch Hellbent!"

I sat down at the beginning of the pandemic and ran through a good dozen or so gay films. Chief among them was this movie that had been recommended to me oh so often. Imagine my shock when I saw it and thought, "Wow. This is absolutely terrible."

But, hey. Could be that I was busy being a contrarian back then. I was young and full of life. Naive and all that jazz. 

Even though Covid screwed up my sense of time, it has been more than five years since then. Perhaps I've grown. Seen the light. And now I fully appreciate the greatness that I once denied.

Or maybe not.

"It's Halloween." - Chaz

Quick Summary

Eddie is an early twentysomething office technician working at a West Hollywood police station. On Halloween night, he and his friends Chaz, Joey, and Tobey dress in their Sunday best to party at the annual WeHo Halloween carnival. Debauchery abounds as their group, three gays and one bisexual menace, take to the streets.

Stalking them is a buff AF devil that looks like a gender-bent version of those basic pinup devil girls that wear lingerie, slap a headband of plastic horns to their noggin, and then call it a "costume." Not that I'm complaining about that part of the movie necessarily...

Story & Characters

Let's be upfront here. I've never been a party gay. I'm a boring, nerdy gay from the Midwest.

My friends are gamers. Gaymers, if you will. Fellow writers and librarians. Lots of weebs. Lots of stoners. Geeks. A couple furries. 

The handful of times I've been in a club, it was not my idea. Lame, I know. But I'm trying to make a point here other than the fact that I'm a dull sumbitch. And that is this: although the story's motif centers around homosexuality, I didn't relate to it very much. 

I think once I realized that and began to accept the movie as being more of a gay slasher rather than a gay slasher, I enjoyed the experience more.

There is a fascinating 2010 write-up by Claire King at Vanderbilt College. In it, she analyzes and dissects the film through her scholarly lens. It's coated in that your usual academic leftist wording about queering and erasure and how Etheredge-Ouzts not wanting his art to constantly scream "I'M GAY" is somehow evil or problematic, idk.

Goddamn, who called the fun police? I was promised hot guys in the shoes of traditional slasher stereotypes. That's what I wanted. And that's what I got. Don't care if all of the actors are straight IRL. They played a part, and they played it well.

Simple as.

At first I was confused by the ages of our main dudes. Eddie works a 9-5, but he immediately begins chasing after a shirtless guy he sees on the street while he's on the clock. Lust at first sight.

Like. Damn, dude. Aren't you a little old to be thinking with your dick like that?  Show some pride. Some self-control. Especially when the dude shuts you down repeatedly. Take a hint. 

It's not as if the lust interest is even that cool. He's a douchebag, actually.

Then one of the friends, Joey, is mentioned as pursuing a "varsity jock."

???

We in high school now or...? 'Cause that's a bit creepy. And not in the horror sense.

Our protagonist clears this up later by explicitly mentioning that they are around 22-23, so phew. We're in the clear, boys. I can't help but feel like that was a deliberately inserted line, but there we go.

Didn't really get the purpose of eye fetish. Like. What was the purpose of that? Such a niche thing. Is the director trying to tell us something about himself? I mean, you do you, I guess. I wouldn't advertise it in my films, but maybe post-Dot-com era WeHo was crazy like that.

The plot is your usual slasher plot. Young hot guys going around wanting to get off. Slasher goes around trying to kill them. The killer doesn't have a particularly good reason for going after them, imo. Not that slashers are traditionally adept at adding backstory to their killers, but this felt exceedingly thin.

Part of me likes that decision because most slasher backstories add lots of runtime, but rarely do they enhance the plot. Still, I would've appreciated an attempt. Something more profound than, "Big hunky Devil gets mooned and goes on a murderous revenge streak."

Why was a sickle the murder weapon? Why does the Devil decapitate people? Is it another fetish thing? We may never know.

The acting in the movie is surprisingly decent. Dare I say, good? Delivery is solid. Despite none of the main dudes being gay, I thought the characters were a believable bunch of friends. Although I suppose a group of gays in California that aren't aggressively fem is pretty rare. I wish that wasn't the case, but let's be real here. That and their generic names should've given the ball away. Still, good work there.

Dylan Fergus played Eddie and really brought home that awkward gay stereotype. It was painful to watch. Painful in a good way. 

Scratch that praise for all the actors. I have to give an exception for the lust interest, Jake. It's probably my hate of the character blinding me, but that performance was not my favorite.

Slight spoilers, but one of my favorite lines happened when Jake was being wheeled away into an ambulance. Eddie tells him, "I'll be there when you wake up."

Uh. Eddie. You've known the guy for six hours at most. Wtf. How about you call his family, yeah? Had me laughing at the sincerity.

I admire this movie as a historical piece. I was pretty young when it was released, so seeing gay storylines from the early 2000s is fascinating. The film is set in Cali, and I remember the Prop 8 debate well. Squaring that shitshow with this film is a little wild. Things are so different now.

I find myself with not a whole lot else to bring up, honestly. This movie was surprisingly not bad. And I say this as someone who doesn't understand the appeal of slashers. This was a lot more fun than I expected or recalled.

Mechanics & Structure

The film is grainy. Really grainy. Really indie grainy.

I get that this was early 2000s, but it's insane, right? 

Look at the shot above. Looks like something straight out of the first season of Dexter or CSI: Miami. The weird lighting and deep shadows. Makes it look like I'm watching a moving chiaroscuro painting.

Not that I mind any of that stuff. I find it charming, actually. Shit ain't made like that anymore. Gimmie that bulky off-white computer monitor.

It was an interesting choice not to show the killer's features. Usually, you only see the dude's shadow or silhouette. And you all know how much I love a good silhouette.

Especially when it's used to show off a nice pec shelf like that, hot damn. Goals. Seriously. Who played this man? I can't find him in the credits. I need to know for research.

When he isn't silhouetted, the killer acts all Black Christmas by peeking through door cracks in first person. The man's practicing his inner voyeur tendencies, I guess.

The music is sick. Fast-paced. Exciting. Disorienting. It hits the perfect vibes of the various settings. Cool-toned wilderness. Yellow alleyways. Red dance clubs.

Also, can I just say that this club's bathroom looks really clean.

Doesn't look anywhere near as clean as any nightclub's bathroom I've been in. Maybe that's an indictment of where I've been, but it's something I noted.

Final Thoughts

Having watched Hellbent again after all these years, I can confidently say that it is a good movie. One that is far more flattering than I remember.

It lacks the ambition to go beyond the normal slasher tropes. However, it makes the traditional formula work for itself.

It's tight and well-paced, with a core friend group that feels alive with personality. I also appreciate that, given this is an early 2000s gay film, it feels like the team is actually having fun telling a gay storyline. It's crazy. It's weird. It's sexy. Overall, it's a good time. And there isn't any ham-fisted, preachy messaging: something that is way way too common in contemporary "queer" media.

Ending with a compulsory apology for getting the movie review out late. Again. Family health emergency this time. I'll get back on track soon. Hopefully.

🟨 Rating: 7/10