HellKat

I had the opportunity to sit down and watch "HellKat", as written by writers Michele Pacitto and Jordan Rockwell, but I have to admit that I wasn't really expecting much from the movie, given its rather ludicrous synopsis. But still, it being a movie that I hadn't seen, of course I sat down to watch it.

Needless to say that the movie's title and its cover/poster definitely served as a focal point to lure in the audience. And it worked as intended.

And well, let me just be the first to say that "HellKat" delivers what to be expected, but nothing more, nothing less. So don't believe yourself in for a grand moment of cinematic masterpiece here, when you watch the movie from directors Scott Jeffrey and Rebecca Matthews.

As for the storyline told in "HellKat", well it was simplistic, I will say that much. Actually it was so devoid of any deeper writing that you could essentially watch the first 15 minutes, leave the movie, and come back to watch the last 15 minutes, and you wouldn't have missed a beat. The writing in the movie was just so bland and mundane, which left very little enjoyment to be had from sitting down to watch "HellKat".

The acting in the movie was adequate, but there is no doubt about that the movie was singlehandedly carried by the performance of Ryan Davies, playing Jimmy Scott. His performance was the most memorable and outstanding of all the performances in the movie, and he really made the character come to life and gave it so much personality with his performance.

Visually then "HellKat" was semi-adequate. The special effects were sort of adequate, although bordering on being lousy at times. So don't expect to be blown away by a grand display of over-the-top CGI and effects.

All in all, then "HellKat" is a movie that you will watch once, provided you manage to get through the entire ordeal the first time around. I managed to watch it, but weren't overly entertained or impressed with the movie. My rating of "HellKat" lands on a mere three out of ten stars, as the movie was bland, mundane and lacking a properly written storyline.

Initially it looked like a solid film and I appreciate the weird but the special effects were horrible along with the fighting choreography. If you subtract that, you're left with a plot parallel to mortal kombat mixed with bad B-rated horror film. It was so bad Nick Cage decided not to do it lol! Could it possibly be better? Maybe but I would rather watch a Steven Segal low budget staring Jean Claude before I recommend this disappointment.

While the start had some questionable scene and continuity, it was quickly redeemed by the performance of the actors with the limited resources they clearly had, I wasn't expecting an A list film, but I was pleasantly surprised by the grit and effort put in by the cast.

This film takes me back to the days of eating junk food on Saturday afternoons with my dad and watching Chuck Norris do roundhouse kicks. But with Hellkat, Sarah T. Cohen just did a round house to my heart. The film is a cerebral suspense thriller with plenty of MMA action to keep your testosterone levels high.

Like I said, it has a throwback vibe to early 90's martial arts action films and had a few twists and turns that caught me by surprise. The soundtrack is killer (composed by 20Six Hundred)!

After losing too many fights, a disgraced former MMA fighter is forced to take any odd job she can to get by, and when one of her patrons one day brings an opportunity to redeem herself in the ring she takes it on, unaware of the demonic implications in store for her and must try to fight her way free.

This one wasn't too bad but did have some issues. When this one stumbles slightly is in the rather underwhelming and stilted means of introducing the general plotline of the film as there's a lot of time that goes by without much of anything happening to get to know who she is or what's going on. Dropped into everything without much in the way of backstory about her career or hard-knock life quickly enough which makes for a somewhat confusing start, especially for the various subplots going on throughout here. As well, the finale is a bit of a mess with the abrupt nature and overall suddenness of the change creates a rather jarring effect that isn't all too effective which are really the films' lone issues. Still, this quibble aside, the film manages far more to like elsewhere. The rest of the setup, focusing on her redemption and general rise from despair to make something of herself once again is a rather strongly accomplished aspect here. The fact that the boredom at the lack of action compensates for everything by giving us a wholly impressive set up as to what she's setting out to accomplish, with the backstory involving her son and how she lost him to the self-destructive antics she took out on herself providing plenty of motivation to get us onto her side and understand what's going on. That it takes place in the guise of a martial arts tournament against a series of demons and various other monsters manages to tie everything together rather nicely. As well, the series of action and brawling that takes place here is a lot of fun and quite enjoyable. More of a series of quick-burst fights exploiting the supernatural powers and antics of their captors against the fighters, the choreography still manages enough to like in terms of the brutality dished out as even though it's not nearly as graphic as it could've been the carnage is quite impressive and gets better as the film carries on. As well, the brutality in the locker room depicting the various restoration treatments to repair the damage of the fights clever means is a lot of fun, and with the generally enjoyable make-up work on the creature designs which is all enough to hold this one up overall.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.