Hellbender

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!

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.

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.

An indie movie made by a family, which held my interest throughout. Well shot at some places, not so much at others, but overall it looks much better than most small production horror movies you may come across. This was not the amateur hour I've come to expect from similar films. Surprisingly enough, the acting was probably the best part of it. Also enjoyed the music, which was kinda edgy, but just enough. Added a lot of character to the film.

Don't expect a great movie, or even a good one, but it certainly exceeded my expectations and was good for what it was.

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.