A tense and claustrophobic horror-thriller, Hellcat makes great use of its cramped single-location setting and its simple countdown-to-disaster premise to build a mood of paranoia and dread that keeps the audience guessing to the last.
Lena (Dakota Gorman) wakes up injured and disoriented to discover she is locked in a trailer being towed at speed down a country road in the middle of the night. When the driver, Clive (Todd Terry), speaks to her through an intercom, he denies she’s been kidnapped, claiming he’s a humanitarian.
He insists she’s been infected, and that her life can only be saved if she reaches the specialist doctor he’s en route to within the hour. Lena’s disbelief increases after she makes terrifying discoveries in her mobile prison, and when the driver pulls over to confront her, this race against the clock takes some unexpected turns.
The film’s first fifty minutes are its strongest, driven by Gorman’s appropriately intense performance as the bewildered captive, refusing to accept her fate. As she ransacks the interior of the Airstream in search of tools and weapons, the film unfolds in confined and intimate close-up. Writer-director Brock Bodell teases the script’s revelations, declining to reveal whether Hellcat is a fantasy horror story or a tale of abduction and imprisonment by a deluded predator until the film’s closing act.
Yet as its perspective expands – introducing more characters and bringing wider exterior vistas into view – the film’s tightly wound tension begins to dissipate. The pace slows, the storyline gets too talky, and the plot takes on more familiar redemption and retribution beats. It’s the film’s earlier thrilling, unpredictable road trip from hell that’s far more memorable.
HELLCAT is released on UK streaming platforms on August 14th
