Hellions

I clicked on this one after meandering through my newly added Amazon horror movies for a while. I hadn’t heard of it, and I wasn’t aware of the talent involved being the camera. In all honesty it was a case of ‘the cover looks cool, the idea sounds okay without being too taxing, and Robert Patrick is in it’. It wasn’t until after watching that I realised it was directed by Bruce McDonald, whose Pontypool I had thoroughly enjoyed. There is a clear visual style at work in Hellions, a style which ensures that you will likely only remember this film for its look and presentation rather than its plot, cast, or what it is trying to say.

Fun fact – I wrote the above intro several months after watching the movie – and I am writing the rest of the review at least 6 months after writing the intro. Surprise surprise, I don’t really remember many details of the plot but I can remember clearly certain moments and how they looked. It’s weird being right. After reminding myself on IMDB of what the plot is – Hellions follows an annoyingly ‘don’t give a fuck’ teenage girl called Dora who has found out that she is inexplicably pregnant on Halloween night. As she waits at home for her boyfriend to visit she is harangued by children in creepy costumes who become increasingly insistent and violent and soon reality and fantasy bleed into each other until no-one has any idea what is going on.

Normally I would love this sort of film – I certainly appreciate the experimental style and the drive to create something unique, but it never comes across as scary or innovative or interesting. It’s essentially a home invasion movie on acid, but everything feels pretentious and the deliberate incoherence is too distracting. Every experiment needs a point, otherwise you’re just blindly pouring chemicals into a bowl and wondering why no-one cares. Is the point to show through image and noise how terrifying it can be to be pregnant at a young age? If so, why not have a more sympathetic lead? Is it all a dream? Is there any point? I’ll leave it up to you but it’s a difficult one to recommend – if you like trying to unravel visual puzzles or films which abandon plot for non-linear storytelling and visual flair then give it a shot. I don’t think your typical horror fan will get much out of this.

Have you seen Hellions? Did you enjoy it more than I did? Let us know in the comments!