Film

Hellbent

Name: Hellbent
Genre: Horror
Released: 2005
Cast: Dylan Fergus, Bryan Kirkwood, Hank Harris, Andrew Levitas, Matt Phillips

A slasher film set during West Hollywood's Halloween Carnival where four gay friends become targets for a masked killer. It's a relentless midnight horror ride—brutal, fast, uninterested in apology. Made for genre fans who want their scares earned and their community centered without explanation or softening.

TMDb rating

2.8

If you liked this

A Nightmare on Elm Street1984

The template for everything Hellbent does: a killer with a signature, a final girl (or in this case, final guy), inventive kills, and a final act that pivots into something weirder. Craven's control is a masterclass.

But It's 40 years old and moves slower than modern horror; the synth score can feel dated rather than timeless, depending on your tolerance for 80s aesthetics.

Friday the 13th1980

The other foundational slasher. Camp, sexual tension, beautiful people getting picked off one by one in the dark. Hellbent clearly learned from this blueprint and executed it with a tighter schedule and meaner edge.

But The kills are less creative than the concept, and there's a stretch in the middle where nothing much happens. It's slower burn than you might expect.

Scream1996

Wes Craven made the slasher smart again—characters who know the rules, a mystery with real stakes, and genuine scares between the clever moments. It reinvigorated the entire genre.

But The meta-commentary can feel heavy-handed if you're not in the mood for the film to wink at you constantly. Some of the dialogue doesn't age as smoothly as the kills.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Hellbent

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Mulholland Drive2001

Both films are set in Los Angeles at night and use their locations as predatory spaces. Both understand that beauty and danger are symbiotic, and that the camera can be as ruthless as any killer.

Lynch turns a murder mystery into something that deconstructs desire, performance, and identity. Like Hellbent, it's obsessed with the night, with beautiful people in an unforgiving city, and with what happens when the mask comes off—but it does it through surrealism instead of slashing.

But It's deliberately difficult and may require a second viewing to even parse what's happening. Some find it pretentious; others find it transcendent. There's little middle ground.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre1974

Raw, anarchic, genuinely unsettling. It proves that suggestion and momentum matter more than gore. The relentlessness Hellbent channels comes partly from Hooper's willingness to let scenes breathe into horror.

But It's deliberately ugly and dehumanizing in ways that can feel exploitative. The pacing is strange by modern standards—long stretches of dread punctuated by violence.

Happy Death Day2017

A slasher that's smart about structure and character. It knows how to be funny and scary in the same moment, and the time-loop conceit lets it play with genre expectations. Fresh energy, real emotion underneath.

But The mystery at the heart isn't particularly clever, and if you solve it early, the middle drags. Some jokes land better than others.

The Prowler1981

A deep-cut slasher with exceptional kill choreography and a Halloween setting that builds genuine dread. It's the kind of film that proves the formula works if you commit to it completely.

But It's genuinely obscure, which means finding it can be annoying. The plot is thin even by slasher standards—you're here for atmosphere and kills, nothing more.

I Know What You Did Last Summer1997

A slasher built on group guilt rather than just picking off bodies. The killer has a reason, the victims have history, and it's propulsive enough to carry you through without thinking too hard.

But The mystery is obvious if you've seen any slasher before. The romance subplot stops momentum dead. It's competent rather than inspired.

Madness in the Method2019

A low-budget slasher that understands pacing and atmosphere better than films ten times its budget. The killer is genuinely menacing and the final act earns its intensity through character work, not just shock value.

But The acting can be uneven and the plot is straightforward to the point of predictability. It's a film that works because of craftsmanship, not in spite of limitations, which some viewers find boring.

See No Evil2006

A slasher that leans into exploitation and doesn't apologize for it. The killer is enormous and unstoppable, the setting is claustrophobic, and it understands that sometimes the appeal is just watching a predator hunt.

But The female characters are thinly written and the film doesn't have much on its mind thematically. If you need your horror to be about something, this won't satisfy you.

The Purge2013

Both films use a specific night as pressure cooker. Both are about communities (whether chosen or imposed) breaking down when survival becomes personal. Both understand that the real horror is in the human response.

A concept-driven thriller that traps people in a house while danger circles outside. It's less interested in scares than in watching how ordinary people respond to extraordinary pressure. Tense, clever about escalation, and genuinely political in a way horror rarely achieves.

But The runtime is generous and some of the dialogue feels like exposition. If you need constant action rather than mounting tension, it will frustrate you.

Gomorrah2008

Both are about beautiful people operating in a system designed to destroy them. Both use urban landscape as something that actively hunts. Both understand that the real killer is often the world itself, not any individual villain.

A Neapolitan crime film that operates like a slasher in slow motion—multiple threads, each character marked for death, no one safe, the entire city a hunting ground. It has the same sense of relentless momentum and the same refusal to reassure you.

But It's in Italian with subtitles. The structure is deliberately fragmented and some plot threads don't resolve. It's violent and nihilistic in ways that can feel cold.