Hellcat

It’s important to mention that my screener of Hellcat had sound problems that muffled the dialogue and design, apart from the radio presenter who was as clear as you’d expect. Being time poor there wasn’t another opportunity to rewatch the film.

Lena (Dakota Gorman) wakes up in a scruffy trailer with what looks like an infection in her arm. This is confirmed by Clive (Todd Terry) who’s pulling the trailer and communicating through a microphone set in mounted wolf’s head.
Lena is in a panic not knowing where she is or going, while Clive is trying to reassure her that she’s in safe hands and going to a medic to deal with her infection.

Matters become more complicated when Lena discovers another woman Ollie (Liz Atwater) in a room at the back. And then Clive begins to get involved in a strange, unsettling conversation with a late-night radio host (James Austin Johnson) about conspiracy theories, and other stuff.

Set predominantly in the trailer and on the move, writer and director Brock Bodell effectively creates a tense claustrophobic atmosphere laced with panic. The pregnant Lena, spends a good deal of the early part of the film, scouring the grim trailer for a way out or implements that may help her. What she does find are clues (for viewers too) as to what is going on, at least in Clive’s mind.

There are sporadic flashbacks to Clive and Lena’s pasts that sort of builds a link between them. Both having suffered loses through illness. That is somewhat tempered by Clive having his daughter with him, chained up in the trailer.

The film scores highly by keeping Clive’s motive and mental state in a state of flux for the viewer and the two female characters. For someone keeping two prisoners in a trailer he has a reasonable bedside manner, which spins on a penny when Lena finds his medicine.

The film broadens as it progresses leaving the confines of the trailer and introduces a rogue copper Crump (Jordan Mullins) to evil things up, if not progress the story that much.

As to the ending, that may cause something of a stir, but the core of this film is a very old tale that has been done almost to death. Bodell should get credit for trying to do something different with his debut feature.

Hellcat will be on Shudder from 14 August 2026.