By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
Published November 17, 2005
[Photo: Regent Releasing]
'Hellbent'
HellBent (NR, probably R) (85 min.) - Two lustful young people are indulging their desires in the dark woods when a maniac suddenly appears and murders them. It sounds like a lot of scenes in any number of slasher flicks, but this opening sequence in Paul Etheredge-Ouzts' movie has one major difference:
The victims are gay men whose desires indirectly lead to gruesome deaths.
Whether that should be considered a breakthrough is debatable. HellBent doesn't raise the level of quality in modern horror, just gives it a makeover. The movie is amateurishly acted, adequately filmed and suitably gross for gore's core audience. Take away the same-sex angle and HellBent would blend into the bloody background. So, it must be asked: Do gay viewers want to see this? Or could it thrill gay bashers to watch homosexuals meet such nasty ends?
The elementary plot allows plenty of time to ponder such questions. Those prologue murders are turned over for investigation to Eddie (Dylan Fergus), a rookie West Hollywood police officer. Eddie's stuck in a desk job but since he's gay, his superiors think he can easily find clues. He isn't dedicated enough to skip the annual Halloween bash, but the party and the investigation will, of course, collide.
Etheredge-Ouzts obviously believes in camp over quality, so HellBent does have a joshing feel that's occasionally fun. The killer remains unidentifiable except for his devil-horns costume. Without any genuine mystery, death takes center stage, and a few of the murders are good for sick laughs. But there's unavoidable conflict between slasher aesthetics and gay cinema that viewers must sort out, or walk out. C
