HELLCAT (2025) – Survival Horror with Grit, Claws, and a Clock Ticking Down

By Vanessa Stewart – Mother of Movies / Fantasia Film Fest 2025 Coverage of Hellcat

A Claustrophobic Descent into the Unknown

HELLCAT, world premiering at Fantasia International Film Festival, puts its pedal to the metal with a 91-minute panic spiral set in a grimy, speeding camper. A woman named Lena (a powerful, pain-wracked performance by Dakota Gorman) wakes up in the dark, with no memory of how she got there, and a wound that defies belief.

She’s told by the driver, a soft-drawl hunter named Clive, that she’s been “rescued”, but there’s a catch. If they don’t get to a doctor in an hour, an unimaginable fate awaits her. So begins this slow-burn, pressure-cooker thriller that leans heavily into distrust, trauma, and the horror of being at the mercy of a stranger with a story that may or may not be true.

“Really cool idea for an isolation film in one room. Much more interesting than a scientist herding test subjects. Here it’s a creative creature feature with a captive on the turn.”

Southern Drawls and Gaslighting Tension

Clive’s world is one of conspiracy, infection, and fringe medicine. He name-drops a doctor. He speaks of outbreaks. But his van, with its rattling walls and bolted-shut windows, feels less like a sanctuary and more like a prison on wheels. Lena’s not buying it, at least not at first.

He warns her that panic accelerates things. But her instincts, and that “rescued” tone men like Clive use too often, set off every alarm. She’s pregnant. She’s scared. But she’s also sharp and increasingly capable. The film does an excellent job of showing her shift from panic to strategic. She’s pretty handy and able to utilise resources to figure out her way around

A Ticking Clock and a Fraying Reality

HELLCAT cleverly uses its single setting and Lena’s fragmented memories to build suspense. Quick flashes, a funeral, a friend framed in neon, the face of someone she once trusted, flicker past like heat strokes. Director Brock Bodell doesn’t rely on dreamscape sequences but rather a kind of scrambled mental Rolodex, a narrative puzzle Lena and the audience try to sort in tandem.

The sound design and lighting here do heavy lifting. The top of the camper glows faintly while the bottom halves of the frames remain shrouded, reinforcing Lena’s confusion and isolation. A rattling spoon, a distant hum, a muffled yell, they all add to a world that feels barely held together.

The Isolation Horror Evolves

As Lena explores, she realizes she’s not alone. Another presence lurks, muted, distorted, and screaming. And Clive? He’s more layered than the average captor. He’s grieving, clearly unstable, and yet the story he’s woven has unnerving consistency. The discovery of a steel-doored room with a mattress, food tray, and writing on the walls adds an uncomfortable weight. Is Clive deluded, or dangerously right?

What HELLCAT plants a ticking clock. He’s on a deadline. He has an hour. That decision makes it smarter and scarier than films that rely on body horror alone. This is existential dread wrapped in barbed wire. As for Lena, she doesn’t believe him, but the wound tells her otherwise.

“The camper is a cluster of familiar stories all in one large vehicle.”

Dakota Gorman Steers the Film Into Cult Classic Territory

Lena’s journey becomes not just a flight from danger but a fight for self-determination. Gorman holds the screen with a fierce, almost weary charisma—her defiance builds slowly, and when it finally surfaces, it feels earned. She’s the rare horror protagonist you root for not just to survive, but to win.

The final act introduces a few audacious turns. There’s thematic gold in the intersections of trauma, transformation, and belief. But rest assured, HELLCAT never leans into gore-porn. Even its most outrageous reveals are treated with a stylistic hand, leaving room for metaphor and mood.

The Verdict

HELLCAT is a well-paced, claustrophobic genre bender that fuses body horror, psychological thriller, and modern myth. With its confined setting, morally ambiguous captor, and a protagonist built to survive whatever nightmare is coming, it howls in all the right places, without giving away its sharpest teeth.

Helllcat Rating

4 survival scars out of 5

Suggested Tags

Distributors: Blue Finch Films
Directors: Brock Bodell
Themes: Gaslighting, Isolation Horror, Unreliable Narrator
Content: Transformation Horror, Survival Thriller, Memory Fracture

Hellcat

Director: Brock Bodell

Date Created: 2025-07-26 08:45

Editor's Rating:
4

Pros

• Keeps the real story very well hidden
• Dark, dusty and crammed into a mobile home
• Unique

Cons

• Overuse of dreams