★★★★☆
What in all that is unholy is a Hellbender? Kinky creeps with a Rubik’s cube? No, that’s Hellraiser. Scouser in a raincoat? John Constantine, Hellblazer. Everything changed when the fire nation attacked? Avatar, the Last Airbender.
Hellbender, as it turns out, is a pretentious word for witch, but don’t let this silly piece of terminology turn you off of this endearing and greatly creative film, made by the Adams (not Addams) Family, a clan of real talents who, between them, are writer-director-editor-composer-lead actress-supporting actress, which is more than even polymaths such as John Carpenter, Orson Welles or Ed Wood ever managed.
So is it any good? I’ll say. Izzy (a hugely sympathetic Zelda Adams) is kept apart from the world by her domineering mother (Toby Poser); inevitably, like the Buddha, she ventures forth into the world and loses her innocence. Things play out in a way that is…decidely un-Buddha-like, but you’d have to watch the film to learn more. There is much to analyse about the cryptic feminism of the script, and the unsettlingly lesbian undertones between Izzy (Zelda Adams) and Amber (Zelda’s sister, Lulu); yet, if you watch the film for any reason, it should be the trippy final third, featuring some of the most spectacular and genuinely otherworldly visuals of any film this year save Everything Everywhere All at Once. And even then, it’s this picture’s bad luck that it released in the same year as that picture, for otherwise it could claim to have the most creative low-budget visuals in a decade or more.
Final thought: though this only one of many excellent Shudder originals, don’t stream it on Shudder. Buy the DVD and enjoy the excellent special features, especially the music videos sung, written, and sometimes directed by Zelda Adams.