The Fantasia International Film Festival is an incredible place to find indie horror gems that illustrate the talent on display from filmmakers with limited resources and a lot of creativity. One such example from this year’s festival is Brock Bodell’s feature film debut, Hellcat, which he wrote, directed, produced, and edited. He takes the conventions and expectations of a monster movie and flips them on their head to craft a tense, single-location nightmare about a feral femme’s battle for bodily autonomy.
Lena (Dakota Gorman) wakes up in the back of a strange camper with no idea of where she is or how she got there. All she knows is that the camper is moving, so that means someone is driving her somewhere. As she regains consciousness, a voice crackles over a speaker. It’s the voice of a stranger named Clive (Todd Terry) who explains that Lena has been bitten by something and that he needs to get her to a doctor. A special doctor who knows how to handle this type of injury. Lena looks down and sees an infected wound that only seems to be getting worse by the second. But of course, she doesn’t trust this guy and scrambles to find a way out.
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From there, Bodell only continues to ratchet up the tension as he never lets the audience know the truth until the bitter end. Is Clive a trustworthy stranger with Lena’s best interests in mind? Or is Lena the victim of a crazy man who’s kidnapped her for his own nefarious means? With the introduction of a conspiracy theorist’s radio show and another mysterious character, Bodell ensures that Hellcat never gets boring or repetitive in its story, even with a limited budget and essentially a single location.
Bodell’s approach here is a stunning example of economy of storytelling. He throws the audience into the deep end and trusts them to catch up. And, for the most part, Bodell’s script ensures that happens. There are enough breadcrumbs left to keep the narrative interesting without making anything too obvious until Bodell chooses to reveal information. It’s very deliberately paced, and while some storybeats feel crammed in rather than fleshed out, Bodell is still able to craft a fascinating world with a nasty little camper and a sultry-voiced radio DJ.
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The deliberate pacing is paired with a very purposeful use of the bizarre to make Hellcat feel detached from reality. A random switch triggers a disco ball and colored lights, which Clive explains was from when he did karaoke with his wife. These moments make our voice of God character feel more human and less like a monster, which only further adds to the mystery at the core of Hellcat. It also gives the film a distinct tone that’s both grounded and darkly whimsical.
Dakota Gorman is incredible here, a feral femme firing on all cylinders. She dominates the screen, at least for the film’s first half, as a woman possessed, possessed with a need to survive and perhaps something else. Gorman isn’t afraid to put her entire body into this performance, which captures Lena’s desperation to escape, like some caged animal. Her ability to be both relatable yet terrifying is gorgeous to behold, especially as the film progresses into its final act.
To be blunt, it’s just really neat to see a film like this done in such a limited way. Hellcat feels like a play in the way it methodically unfolds. This is the kind of monster movie I didn’t know I needed, one that’s full of mystery but also has a lot to say about what it means to survive as a woman in a world that only seems to covet us as consumable objects rather than actual human beings.
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