Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Lack of good storyline.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Billed as 'the first gay slasher film', Hellbent basically takes every genre trait it can and tries to combine them into a singular movie. It works in some ways, mainly as a pastiche with a twist since it's not the usual straight sex-crazed, drugged-out teens that have been served up as fodder for decades.Unfortunately, it doesn't work in a number of other ways, and that's a real shame. I think the biggest way that it fails is that no-one really brings up the concern of a hate crime after the double-murder at the beginning. In reality, that would be all over the place, people would have heard about it, and it's very unlikely things would go on exactly as planned with a brutal double-murder the night before Halloween, especially when it was not even two blocks away from the centre of West Hollywood. Sorry, but I don't buy it.It seemed like the makers wanted to avoid stereotypes, but in so doing also managed to avoid realistic-feeling characters. Instead, the characters came off as pretty heavily stereotypical...just in different ways than is usually seen in gay-oriented entertainment, and at the same time included almost no recognisable figures that one would really encounter in a place of such a concentration of the gay community. Basically, like they were trying way too hard to 'normalise' gay men and gay culture, to the point where it just looks like obnoxious 20somethings at funky clubs on Halloween. The characters are all fairly ridiculously fit, though, which isn't really clever enough to be ironic.It didn't deal well with the mysterious killer, who is never explained and has no real gravitas. It's just some bodybuilder in a mask, that's it. Nothing more is ever really explored. For that matter, the other characters were largely not that great, aside from the genuinely likable Chaz, which may have been due to the actor's own charisma. The main protagonist was awful, as was his unbelievable and obnoxious female friend; they also didn't really explain what he was doing working for the police since it was stated numerous times he failed his exam.This said, though, the big flub of Hellbent is that it kills off the much more likable and interesting characters, does it far too soon in the story, and doesn't even do it well. The more annoying characters stick around, the story goes nowhere, and it ends about as you'd expect. The story doesn't make sense -- after encountering a weird, potentially dangerous guy at the scene of a murder less than 24 hours previous, they say nothing to anyone and aren't that surprised when he follows them?! The whole hate crime element is not really touched upon, and it's conspicuous by its absence, but it's not something that the viewer can really avoid thinking about.Maybe that's the reason why Hellbent is one of a tiny few in the 'gay slasher' genre...because it's not really fun, and usually slasher films are kind of supposed to be. It tries too hard, and it doesn't try hard enough. It's basically just really depressing, and by the end of it all you aren't even fulfilled by a satisfying resolution. If it had been just another 'straight teens go partying on Halloween and there's a killer' film, not a single person would have cared. It doesn't have a sense of humour really, so you can't even say it's a black comedy. It's just sad.

Having an interest to see a Slasher movie perhaps take a different route from the norm,I was surprised to recently find out that 2004 had been the year when the first ever Gay Slasher film had been made.Intriged by seeing the genre's supreme producer Joseph Wolf connected to the film,I decided to take a look at a movie which would hopefully look at the Slasher genre from a refreshingly different point of view.The plot:With the famous West Hollywood Carnival only a day away,the local police start to suspect that a serial killer is planning to turn the Carnival into a bloody mess,when the bodies of two men are found beheaded in a park.Not wanting to ruin his friends plans for the carnival,officer Eddie decides that he will keep his eyes wide open for the serial killer during the celebration,who will end up getting Eddie and his friends to paint the West Hollywood Carnival blood red.View on the film:Whilst the characters of Slasher films are seen (sometimes wrongly) as being a bit stupid,writer/director Paul Etheredge-Ouzts sadly makes Eddie and his pals some of the dumbest characters that I have seen in any film!.Despite the best efforts from the charismatic cast,Ouzts makes it almost impossible for any emotional involvement with the characters,due to their level of stupidity being miles away from the normal behaviour of having a serial killer constantly trying to chop your head off,with a number of Eddie's friends seriously asking the masked knife welding psycho if he wants a date for the night!.Although his screenplay is a disappointing,first time director Outzts keeps the movie moving at a quick pace and also shows a real flair for the set-piece murder scenes,with a brutal murder taking place in a toilet featuring an impressively done final shot,and a savage killing at a disco being extremely distinctive thanks to Ouzts wonderfully stylised directing.

I just loved this film. Yes, it's silly and the plot and dialogue could be better, but it has the makings of a cult. I'm not a fan of slasher films, but I was intrigued by this because it's the first gay slasher film. Some of the photography was simply beautiful (the blood from the tattoo, the motorcycle ride, the bedroom scene). I've read criticism of Kirkwood's performance (Jake), that he seems uncomfortable, but he's playing a damaged, possibly broken hearted character, so his discomfort/awkwardness could be part of his performance. I think the scenes at the end, where he's vulnerable and clingy, are very well underplayed, poignant. The only criticism I have is that it's too short. At 85 minutes, there would have been plenty of time (at least 10 minutes) to give us a bit more story - I was dying to see Tobey (Matt Phillips) properly out of drag! I'd like to see a sequel, but I think if they were going to make one, they'd have made it by now... Or, six years later, the psycho killer could have escaped and is hellbent (hehe) on tracking down Jake and Eddie (who are still together and in love of course... or maybe they've split up (over some trivial misunderstanding) and the new danger brings them back together for a bitter reunion... but in the end they realise they still love each other... I could go on...) I want to see more films like this.

This movie, like a number of movies that have been churned out since the New Queer Cinema days, suffers from a genuinely bad script and performances by actors who obviously don't want to be in a gay movie.Richard Ruccolo obviously didn't want to kiss a gay guy in All Over The Guy but gave a good performance, given the bad dialogue and general sitcom-quality of that script. The best thing that can be said about the main actors in this movie is that they give plausible enough performance IN SOME cases in A VERY FEW scenes, with some of them giving really bad performances nearly always. Bryan Kirkwood was patently uncomfortable that he brings new meaning to the word "trade." Some gay-for-pay straight models in gay adult films have given far more believable "acting" performances. If Hank Harris was supposed to be Dylan Fergus' (Eddie) and Eddie's cop/sister younger brother, he needs better skin care and makeup. The producer should have also, at least, sprung for the buck to buy some black hair coloring at the 99 Cents Only store to make the family resemblance at bit more plausible.SPOILERSBut plausibility isn't something this film seems to want to care much about -- for example, the Luke character leaves a crime scene or shows up at the "West Hollywood Police Department" in a motorcycle, sans helmet without hearing word one about it from a "WH" cop; the Chaz character get not only sliced but decapitated on a crowded dance floor and no one notices, hears about it, or stumbles on him; Eddie ends up at the crime scene where his younger brother (whom he was earlier so concerned over and about) was killed, gets attacked there himself, goes to the "WHPD," runs into his sister and yet no one (not even the sister) mentions to him that his brother was the victim at that crime scene. By this point, even some stupid queen in a k-hole would have realized there was a bloody, decapitated body on the dance floor and since the "devil" wasn't taking wallets, it shouldn't have been that hard to ID the bodies. Yet, when he gets homes, Eddie walks around the apartment wondering where everyone is. . .I could spend another few paragraphs on the really horrible dialogue or plot points, but it's not worth it. Suffice to say that it would have taken about 1/3 the cleverness of any of the Scream movies with even this exact same cast, to make a movie 10 times better.This isn't even worth spending the time watching on Logo, much less paying $3.95 for it on Here! TV.