Hellbenders

Having its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Hellbenders comes to us from the mind of writer/director JT Petty who was the man calling the shorts behind Mimic 3: Sentinel (2003) and The Burrowers (2008).

The film takes us inside the Hellbound Saints of Brooklyn Parish where the members are a group of vile quasi-Catholic priests who spend their days soaked in immorality in efforts to overtly break each of the seven deadly sins. Their licentiousness is recorded by a fellow member of the parish (Andre Royo) and the intention is to be so morally reprehensible that you can be possessed by a demon and then pull that demon into hell with you after taking your own life. This is the motivation for members to be "damnation-ready" for when the time is needed for them to spring into action.

The 'church' is always in a state of readiness. And when the phone rings with reports of a demon sighting, the members jump into action to both bloody and comedic effect. Think of them like the Ghostbusters, except this team likes to smoke, get drunk and commit as many sins as possible for heading out on assignment.

Things get hairy when two of the members try to exorcise a demon only to have one of them become possessed with an evil spirit intent on wiping out all of humanity. The remaining members must then put their feelings for the possessed priest aside as they attempt to thwart the demons world destruction plans.

With a cast that includes Clancy Brown, Dan Fogler, Macon Blair and Robyn Rikoon, Hellbenders was an interested but flawed profane 85-minute ride that stretched its interesting story about as far as audiences would concede.

The equal balance of comedy and supernatural elements worked fairly well and the cast seemed to be invested in the source material which was extracted from JT Petty's own graphic novel.

But the story just didn't grab us by the throat they way the director (I am sure) intended. Although these beings attempt to be as vile and profane as possible, they still didn't come across as evil and nasty as you would have hoped for such a dark comedy. And a whole storyline about the Parish being shut down by the church just felt like a diversion from the core story that was far more interesting.

The effects in the film were top rate. We were surprised at our screening to be passed 3D glasses, but as the movie progressed, we were conscious of the extra dimension and thought it was one of the better uses of the gimmick we have seen on screen. The make up and special effects were also comparable to big blockbuster type budgets.

But for a film demonic possession, it felt rather hollow and didn't give us enough of what the synopsis of the film promised. By the time the curtain was lowered and the cinema lights came back on, we had wished that JT Petty had spent more time on the characters themselves than on the story. We would have far more appreciated a feature just watching these guys sin and try and top each other rather than watching them demon hunt.

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I don't understand why horror films are always so harshly judged more than any other genre, my rule of thumb is to always add 2 to any horror rating but maybe 2 was not enough for this film. It was an enjoyable horror comedy taking a different and original view of exorcism movies. Not brilliant but i enjoyed this film!

I've never reviewed a movie; but I have seen thousands, so I feel qualified enough to give an informed opinion. For what it was, this movie was freakin' Awesome! Don't forget that this is a cross genre movie. Don't get caught up in the fact that any serious horror fan wouldn't appreciate this or that, go into it knowing 'It's A Comedy/Horror'. This is a very well acted adult comedy using a horror theme. It's a great concept and well put together. There's plenty of gore and thrills to justify the horror tag, just don't expect the Exorcist and you will be well entertained. I am not involved with this or any other movie, I am just a dude who likes movies and gets pi$$ed-off when people misrepresent one to others by totally missing the whole point of it.

I will watch this movie again and make sure others do too. I gave it a 9/10 to try and even-out the D-bags who gave a low score but it is a solid 7/10. Acting, Concept, COMEDY/Horror; remember that.

This movie wasn't as entertaining as I expected it to be

Clifton Collins Jr is one of my favorite actors, but I don't know he just feels out of place here or he's not really trying too hard with his performance...

Clifton is a true character actor usually but he's just not giving his character much life in this one, could be the director's fault that he didn't give him much of a character to work with but anyways it becomes a pretty flat performance...

That's not to say that he's any worse than the rest of the cast he's not but I didn't have any expectations of the other cast so that's why I pointed him out...

The first half hour is pretty crap, it's mainly a comedy at that point with lame jokes that I don't expect many people will find funny and ill- delivered ones on top of that...

It improves in the last 50 minutes though when it turns into more of a horror, it still dabbles with comedy through out but at least there is some sort of plot that gets your interest if just a little bit...

In the end the movie is watchable, but if I bought it I would be very disappointed, luckily I was able to watch it for free and yeah it was worth the time I put in to watch it at least but that's really about it

They had some cool ideas like the idea that all the exorcist priests had to commit sins themselves in order to send the demons to hell and stuff but yeah it could've been a much better movie

Only seven reviews so far, so I guess this movie slipped under the radar. Too bad. If the horror/comedy genre is your bag, you should catch this. Horror + Religion (The Exorcist) can be a pretty creepy combo, and this movie has its touches. The comedy aspect is not goofy slapstick, but sort of low key and character driven. Think of some of the weirder people you know -- likable, odd-ball funny, but not necessarily of the "ha ha" sort. Then mix in the over-the-top plot (well discussed in several reviews here), and you have something quite different and a real blast. The cast was wonderful. I loved Clancy Brown's character, a guy we probably all know, and Clifton Collins' good-hearted punk. I liked these "debauched" Hellbenders because they were still good-guy Regular Joes, struggling with the dichotomy of good vs. evil in a world (somewhat) more off-kilter then ours.