Fantasia Fest: Brock Bodell’s Hellcat soars off stellar performances
Courtesy Blue Finch Films
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Writer-director Brock Bodell’s debut feature, Hellcat, takes a somewhat rudimentary psychological thriller story and gussies it up with smart artistic choices and two stellar performances—even though a third-act gamble threatens to undo the goodwill.
As the film opens, Lena (Dakota Gorman) finds herself in quite a predicament. Not only is she inside an airstream camper, barrelling down the highway, but it doesn’t belong to her. Complicating matters further, she notices she has a grotesque and hastily bandaged wound on her arm. Understandably scared and mad, she begins to tear the camper apart.
That’s when a disembodied voice, emanating from a speaker within a mounted wolf’s head, asks her to “calm down”.
The voice belongs to the owner of the camper, Clive (Todd Terry), who unconvincingly tries to tell Lena that he’s a good guy. He pleads with her that he found her injured in the woods and they only have an hour to get to a doctor, before something bad happens to her. He doesn’t elaborate more, enraging her further, to which he sternly tells her she needs to keep her heart rate down, or it’ll make matters worse.
Racing against the clock, Lena desperately tries to find a means of escape, while playacting Clive and engaging in conversation with him. Their talks end up opening old wounds, as Lena begins to question exactly where she is and what’s going on.
It’s tough to go very far into too many plot specifics without getting into spoiler territory. The central concept is what makes it engaging. The limited location. The disembodied voice. The tension. The mystery. It congeals into the kind of genre exercise that excels at film festivals, where ingenuity is rewarded.
Hellcat uses its space. While an airstream is larger than, say, the inside of an SUV or a coffin, it isn’t exactly roomy. Smartly never wanting to break the immersion of the location, anytime Lena has a flashback, the interior of the airstream matches what she’s seeing. A mini campsite and a fire appear. Vines and branches crawl across the cabinets. At one point, the colors and angles shift to give off the vibe of a club scene.
It’s both impressive and disorienting, effectively putting the audience in Lena’s shoes. Digging deep into the central themes of isolation and grief. All the while showcasing a level of command and skill beyond the film’s humble means.
In addition to those aesthetic and technical flourishes, Hellcat is kept together thanks to the delicate dance between Clive and Lena. Terry and Gorman are exceptional in their roles. Playing against one another brilliantly, without sharing much screentime together.
Though the technical and acting sides are aces, Bodell doesn’t seem content resting on his laurels on just those elements. Instead, he lets ambition get the better of him and shifts perspective in the second and third acts. The first one is jarring, but adds an unexpected layer of depth to the film.
Hellcat breathes new life into something familiar. Bodell is certainly a director to keep an eye on. He’s great at crafting a twisty story and getting the best performances possible out of his actors. He almost shoots himself in the foot and ruins it, by a third act that throws off the pace entirely. Yet, it’s weirdly worth it, due to one of the most audacious and brilliantly over-the-top endings in a long time.
