Metacritic reviews

Writer-Director Paul Etheredge-Ouzts has a clear understanding of the beauty of a slasher film. A formulaic genre, it’s not the blueprint that’s important, it’s what you do inside it that matters.

A hard-charging horror movie with a clever gay twist.

A straight-ahead slasher pic with the big difference of an all-gay male character cast, Hellbent is fun -- if minor horror fun -- ably handled by first-time feature helmer Paul Etheredge-Ouzts.

You can be sure that his victims die shirtless, and are as dumb as the hetero dimwits who fell prey to Jason or Freddy, but what you might not expect is that this queer-slanted slasher flick is actually pretty good.

Because more time is dedicated to crafting authentic, sympathetic characters than the average horror movie, it's easier to overlook the film's often-corny dialogue and so-so special effects.

Fairly competent but hardly engrossing.

Apart from the gender twists, there is one notable difference between the traditional slasher flick and this gay take: Here, even the nice boy gets it on. And he doesn't even get punished for it.

There are two ways of looking at Paul Etheredge-Ouzts' thriller, which he is proudly billing as "the first-ever all-gay slasher film." Either it's a truly lousy retread of horror-movie clichés, or it's a mildly amusing sendup of them.

There's nothing here that hasn't been done before, and better, in any given "Halloween" or "Friday the 13th" sequel.

The scariest thing about Hellbent is that somebody thought making this humorless gaysploitation slasher flick would be a good idea.