Hellbent Horror with a Twist

It’s no secret that 2005 hasn’t been a very good year for horror. If anything, the genre has been beaten into the ground so hard it’s difficult to imagine another good one worth screaming about ever again. Sure, George A. Romero hit a solid blood-soaked double with “Land of the Dead” and Wes Craven more than made up for the wretched “Cursed” with the splendidly tense “Red Eye,” but dang if it isn’t hard to come up with little else that’s been worthwhile.

No, the majority of the horror/suspense thrillers this year have bordered on the dreadful, all of them undone by inept endings, poor scripts, bad acting, crappy direction or combination of all of the above. The list reads like a murderer’s row of catastrophe; “White Noise,” “Hide and Seek,” “The Amityville Horror,” “The Boogeyman,” “The Ring Two,” “High Tension,” “The Devil’s Rejects,” “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” “The Cave;” and just the thought of seeing any one of them again is enough to make me want to lose my lunch.

Wandering into the fray this weekend are two new potentials trying to break the year-long horror film curse. The first, the college set “Urban Legend” knockoff “Cry_Wolf” looked to have potential, but the fact there is no screening for critics isn’t a very good sign. Besides, it’s only rated PG-13. Who ever heard of a decent slasher flick that was rated PG-13? I imagine Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers are rolling over in their graves just at the very concept.

Luckily, good taste and blood-free eviscerations are the last thing either would have to worry about if they took in a midnight screening of “Hellbent.” Unrated, co-produced by the people over at Fangoria and one of the financiers that helped John Carpenter make “Halloween” and set during West Hollywood’s infamous Halloween Carnival, “Hellbent” is as traditional as a slasher pic can get. Following four friends at the carnival as they are unknowingly stalked by a killer with a knack for beheading, this is a movie where the blood and gore flow like maple syrup on pancakes. But that’s not what makes it unique. What makes it unique is the fact this four friends; straight-laced Eddie (Dylan Fergus), juvenile Joey (Hank Harris), insecure Chaz (Andrew Levitas), professional model Tobey (Matt Phillips); are gay.

Of course, wouldn’t you know it, but the novelty of the protagonists being gay is exactly where the originality in “Hellbent” ends. For an aggressively homosexual picture, writer-director Paul Etheredge-Ouzts plays things, forgive the euphemism, plays things fairly straight. This is an aggressively stupid cast list horror movie (which mean everyone inside it plays a standard type and dies based on their listing in the credits), and the only reason anyone would ever know these guys are gay is that one of them dresses in drag and another spends almost sixty minutes lusting after a motorcycle riding Marlon Brando wannabe named Jake (Bryan Kirkwood).

Okay, in all honesty the fact that “Hellbent” doesn’t use stereotypes is actually a good thing; I’ll definitely give the filmmakers that. For the most part, the five guys at the center of things are perfectly normal, each looking for love and happiness in their own individual way. This isn’t a tired caricature-laden waste of time like “The Broken Hearts Club” or “Because I’m a Cheerleader.” Etheredge-Ouzts actually has the audacity to make his guys real people, each with their own idiosyncrasies and issues, the fact that they all happen to be gay a refreshingly unimportant afterthought.

Personally, my favorite bits revolved around Tobey. The big beefcake underwear model decides to go out for the evening dressed in immaculate 1930’s glamour drag only to discover the guys he’s interested in; big, beefy and ready for a WWF tryout; are no longer interested in him. I don’t think I’ve seen a movie dealing with this particular subculture that has the guts to admit gay men are this superficial, this shallow, or that doing drag or transitioning from male to female (or vice versa) and still being able to find love – or at least a date – is heartbreakingly difficult.

Buy my understanding can only go so far. Even given the leeway low budget horror attends, the acting here is still borderline abysmal (although, admittedly, both Kirkwood and Phillips are actually pretty good). Worse, the photography is murky, under lit and headache inducing, the digital video images a guaranteed migraine causing pain in the cerebrum. And while the filmmakers manage to steer clear of most gay stereotypes, that doesn’t mean they still don’t revel in the usual horror stereotypes. This movie’s pieces fit like a well-worn puzzle, and while the images may be new the final layout is still far too familiar to be interesting.

I do have to give Etheredge-Ouzts props for a few of his images, though. Just the thought of a crazed madman (dressed in a Daredevil-like costume no less) licking out a guy’s glass eyeball is enough to give me the shivers, to actually see it nearly sent me skittering across the floor in hysterics. Sure it’s not enough, not when so much of the rest of “Hellbent” is so mind-numbingly routine, but I will definitely remember it. When compared to 2005’s other horror outings, that’s almost enough to warrant a recommendation on its own.

Almost.