Isn’t it funny how time can heal all wounds in the world of movies? Just a few short years ago, the words “contained”, “chamber” or “one location horror” had utterly exhausted the genre audience – to the extent that people didn’t want to see another film set in one place for a very long time. Yet courtesy of the world premiere of Brock Bodell’s feature directorial debut, Hellcat, at Fantasia 2025, we’re heading back into that world of storytelling. Now with it being boxed inside one location it may be too soon for many, but personally it felt like a breath of fresh air, especially where its “monster movie” aspirations are concerned -which I won’t be talking about here.
Hellcat opens with a young woman named Lena (Dakota Gorman), waking up in strange mobile home, and the story focuses on her wellbeing for a good 80% of the movie. She’s being kept against her will in a silver bullet camper van that’s bounding through the American Midwest countryside in the middle of the night, and so far it sounds like a textbook case of kidnapping. Her captor however, is the quite talkative Clive (Todd Terry), who insists that he’s doing this to keep her safe as witnessed to something happening to her at a campsite that infected her body and blood (he also keeps calling himself a “good guy”, which is the reddest of red flags). He claims to be taking her to a backstreet doctor to help her shake the infection, and tells her that whatever happens, she has to keep calm as once the infection reaches her heart, it’s game over.
There is a case to made that Hellcat (named after a cocktail), is an STI analogous horror, and it could likewise be argued that the film is using the metaphorical layering of genre cinema to talk about illegalised abortions, as Lena is pregnant as all this is happening. I can’t speak for the latter as I don’t know when the idea was “conceived” (in relation to the whole Rowe vs Wade ordeal), but as is often the case, the subtext of a movie is informed by the social and political happenings at the time of release rather when it was written.
The big limitation of COVID-horror is that those often felt like they were intentionally trying to keep things contained, even when the story was too confined and demanded more room for growth. It was a global pandemic with numerous lockdowns, and films were starting to feel like self-flagellating writing exercises rather than fully resolved stories. Hellcat isn’t like that, and the reason is because the narrative non-linearity of Bodell’s script as it bounces from objects in the caravan that represent environmental character development for Clive (this is his home, after all), to flashbacks about Lena’s past (complete with some elegant transition work – editing again, by Bodell), and Lena finding another captive woman called Ollie (Liz Atwater).
It’s all a little hazy and dizzy while it happens, but it all eventually comes together in the third act, coalescing into a truly divergent example of its specific sub-genre – although, again, I’m not spoiling what that is. What I will say is that Hellcat turns something transformative and bloody into something like a disease, and its these left turns and deviations from the expected that keeps ideas fresh, and, most importantly, keeps you guessing.
Being a multi-hyphenate like Bodell is a mark of necessity in indie cinema, rather than symbolising any over-abundance of talent, which I mention not to talk down the achievements of the debuting director, but to stress the level of production we’re talking about here. Hellcat manages that neat feat of being super small while never truly feeling it, Bodell avoiding the “micro horror” label through some expert set decoration (location, location, location, as they say), and the work of his collaborator, cinematographer Andrew Duensing. The inside of the Silver Bullet campervan feels like an evolving space thanks to the level of accomplishment with which Duensing introduces light into the moving box, and that alone is the ultimate test of confining a story within one location – a test that dates back at least as far as the noir-adjacent Key Largo (1948).
While it may be odd for a man to pen a narrative that could debatably fall within the pregnancy horror/thriller field, Hellcat is at its best when the movie uses Lena’s body against her, giving Gorman an almighty platform to showcase her incredible physicality and acting abilities, and it’s there, and through Bodell and Duensing’s command of space, that Hellcat leaves such an impact. I’m not sure it’s enough to elevate the film above the many discoveries and new classics that will be undoubtedly be unearthed this festival season, but it’s enough to impress me, and as the credits rolled I found myself curious and intrigued by what this debuting director will produce next time.
HELLCAT (2025) HAD ITS WORLD PREMIERE AT FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2025
