Hellcat
She awakens, her rattling carriage less than regal, confused and gasping in pain, the wound on her arm bandaged but no clue as to how she came to be here, in the back of a mobile home bouncing along the highway at speed with doors locked and windows blacked out, space to move around at least but no clues or answers as she searches until a voice comes over the intercom.
Her name Lena Orchard, her captor attempts to assure her that he has her best interests at heart but the fact that he will not stop the truck, tell her where they are going or let her call a friend meaning she has little faith in his words, screaming into the night for help, her methodical search finding another small room beyond hers, another girl chained inside.
A claustrophobic thriller of uncertainty and anxiety, Hellcat is written and directed by Brock Bodell, with Dakota Gorman and Todd Terry as Clive, initially a crackling voice but his later interactions more direct as Lena, as any good girl should in a hostage situation, refuses to sit down and shut up, ransacking the trailer for anything useful and interrogating her captor but finding only raw meat, syringes and silver bullets.
With Liz Atwater as the second captive, her presence evaporates any possibility in Lena’s mind that perhaps Clive is telling any significant portion of the truth, determined that both of them will escape, that his promise that they are on their way to a hospital to see a specialist is a lie, but she cannot deny that something is wrong, black lines crawling from the poorly bandaged wound on her arm.
Clive insisting he is a good and honest man, he becomes less reasonable as the miles pass, a fan of conspiracy theorist radio shows and talking about how his daughter “changed” when she went to college, Hellcat a film which preys on uncertainty and doubt and the basic fear of abduction and loss of autonomy, but while the lead performances are good, if a little mumbly, it lacks the flair to elevate it beyond the ordinary.
With fragmented flashbacks to happier times dragging the pace and Jordan Mullins as a pursuing slow-speaking bad cop so basic he might have been added in on the spot to raise the stakes, other than some gorgeous close-ups of the Moon, undeniably calling to Lena as it rises, the premise is too thinly stretched, requiring a harsh intensity which it circles but never captures as the end of the road approaches.
Hellcat will be streaming on Shudder from Friday 14th August
