Hellbender

For years you've been taught one thing from your mother, that your condition means you can't be around others, you've been hidden far away, a two girl band you like to play, in the woods where you've behaved and been no bother. As you grow older you sense changes happening, you make some friends and they seem really interesting, until they make you twist and squirm, after swallowing a worm, then life becomes a bit more challenging (and rewarding depending on your perspective).

Well made and well performed, as Izzy discovers all is not what she had been led to believe and new opportunities are opened to her once she changes her diet.

Usually movies where everyone is involved with everything aren't good.

Ex: the movies where the writer, director, producer, and main actor are all the same person.

This appears to be an exception to that rule

This is a movie that needs a bigger budget treatment. If mixed with some 60s or 70s European horror, it would have been an EASY 10.

THINK Suspiria. As I was watching I was getting those vibes. These people need more funds because they used minimalism and made it work. I'm hungry for more!! (but only the berries please)

If you want a minimalist witch movie with great music, this is it!

That is a weird film.

Funnily, it looks like a rough sketch of something bigger to come, but that would never exist - a bigger feature film, or a series, something that would offer the space needed to develop the ideas the creative crew (all members of the same family it seems) only touch on during the brief moment of the movie.

The framework is very simple: it's the story of two outcasts lost in a space and a time they don't fit in. Graphically, the film is a joyride, really: many are the good, inventive ideas of cinema, great are often the way the camera moves, the pace, the editing, the settings.

Yet, Hellbender's plot is then full of holes.

The center of the film, the relationship between mother and daughter, is interesting, thanks also to the two actresses whose simple, almost blank acting contributes a lot to the alchemical mystery. However, it's also very fustrating to be given so little clues. The screenplay invite us viewers to share for a brief moment their geographical as well as cultural isolation, but without telling us too much. So ethereal and vaguely suggested are the whys and wherefores that in the end these two figures escape us completely - which might also be a good thing as it deepens even more their out-of-place, otherworldly idiosyncrasies. Fustration can be intellectually and emotionally fruitful, it's always a matter of balance between what is showed, what is hidden, what is intelligible, what stays puzzling.

And puzzling Hellbender is. The film could be compared to a tapestry, but the spotlight would only be focused on a couple of pieces of fabric; of the rest you'll know nothing; it lies in the shade only to materialise briefly in some occasional suggestive scenes one can take a glimpse of in the course of the story; these snipets of an aborted, more ambitious work are quite thrilling, really, but in the context of this very film as an object, that's only what they are: flourishes to drool over, never completely daring enter the heart the tale to make its pulse more vivid.

This reluctance to reveal the whole of the tapestry is really too bad. I don't disaprove ellipsis: it's fuel for the imagination, but Hellbender uses them in excess. I hope one day I'll eventually see these vain teasers give birth to that greater, more complete narrative thread they're calling for.

This is not a classic horror movie. I would describe it as "Coming of age/indie/art horror". If you want to have some mindless fun, people get killed by murderers or evil spirits, stay away. This is a classy, stylish movie, depicting the nature of evil, at least, some kind of supernatural evil. The actors are nearly excellent, natural performances, clever script, great cinematography and keep in mind that this is a low budget movie.

The ending is kinda brilliant and lazy simultaneously, i mean, i liked it, there is no ambiguity, everything is clear, however, it's like they finished the movie abruptly because they run out of money. Still it's brilliant though.

I like this movie very much. 7.2/10. But i think it's gonna be a polarizing movie. If you know what to expect, you will like it too.

Hellbender is a micro budget horror film that is the very definition of a mixed bag, and most of this stems from the fact that the filmmakers reached far beyond what their budget permitted.

The performances range from great to terrible. The cinematography ranges from competent to atrocious. The editing ranges from effective to irritating. The dialogue ranges from emotionally resonant to laughably stupid. And, the visual effects range from extremely convincing to embarrassingly unconvincing.

Still, what keeps this movie elevated above its low-budget flaws is its story. It's tragic and it's executed in a way that I haven't seen before. And that alone is something worth praising from the rooftops.

Aside from some character motivations that were too muddled and confusing, I loved the two lead characters and how they were portrayed. This is a coming-of-age story that concludes in the exact opposite way that one would traditionally expect: with every parent's worst nightmare.

There is a great deal about Hellbender that does not work, but there is just a bit more that does. And the climactic final scene legitimately gave me chills.

I love supporting tiny indie films. Go watch it if you can.