HELLIONS (2015)

Studio:       IFC Midnight
Director:    Bruce McDonald
Writer:       Pascal Trottier
Producer:  Frank Siracusa, Paul Lenart
Stars:     Chloe Rose, Rossif Sutherland, Rachel Wilson, Peter DaCunha, Luke Bilyk, Robert Patrick

Review Score:

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Summary:

A pregnant teenager home alone on Halloween must defend herself against an onslaught of devilish trick-or-treaters.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

On Halloween, 17-year-old Dora Vogel learns from Doctor Gabe Henry that she is pregnant. While Dora’s mother Kate takes her little brother Remi trick-or-treating, Dora waits at home alone for her boyfriend Jace to pick her up for a party.

A silent trick-or-treater in a Baghead mask comes to the door repeatedly. Accompanied by a trick-or-treater in a Buckethead mask on his second visit, Baghead touches Dora’s stomach and leaves a bloody handprint. Dora is suddenly compelled to vomit and immediately calls Dr. Henry for help.

Baghead and Buckethead return with a third trick-or-treater in a Lionhead mask. Dora sees her boyfriend’s severed head in Baghead’s candy sack and calls 911.

Strange activity continues inside and outside the house as the trick-or-treaters torment Dora. Dr. Henry is viciously attacked when he arrives, but Dora manages to get him inside. While the trick-or-treaters invade the house, Dora and Dr. Henry take refuge in the basement.

Dr. Henry discovers that Dora’s pregnancy is inexplicably advancing rapidly. Buckethead attacks and seemingly kills Dr. Henry. In desperation, Dora throws salt at Lionhead and Lionhead collapses as her flesh bubbles and melts.

Dora escapes the house and hides in a shed outside. A disembodied voice compels Dora to sleep and repeats “blood for baby,” explaining that the hellions tormenting her have plans to kill Dora and take her unwanted child.

Officer Mike Corman rescues Dora. Thinking they hear Dr. Henry’s screams, Dora returns to the house with Mike, but it turns out to be another hellion illusion. Mike finds runes drawn on the wall that translate to harvest, birth, and sacrifice. Upon confirming that Dora is pregnant, Mike explains that he confronted the hellions during a previous Halloween blood moon when they came for his pregnant wife Sherri.

Mike is pulled into the attic and seemingly killed. More masked trick-or-treaters surround the house. Dora arms herself with Mike’s shotgun. Illusions and hallucinations continue as Dora’s pregnancy advances. Dora puts salt inside the shotgun shells and kills another trick-or-treater by knocking him into salted bathwater.

Dora makes it outside and shoots hellions on the lawn until she is overcome by a swarm of them. Dora wakes restrained and surrounded in an open field, but Mike comes to her rescue. In a dream state, Mike and Dora enter Mike’s former house. Mike presents his wife’s newborn child to Dora and it mutates in the girl’s arms.

Dora wakes from a nightmare to find herself in the hospital with a wound on her stomach. She walks to the newborn nursery where, while looking at the babies, a disembodied voice speaks to her once again.

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Review:

Prepare for polarization.  At one end of “Pontypool” director Bruce McDonald’s “Hellions” is a mound of moody madness and stylish scares.  At the other sits a heap of baffling background and ambiguous artistry.  Whichever side sways most is what tips the scale determining who leaves frightened and who leaves frustrated.

Dora has received news from her doctor that no 17-year-old girl wishes to hear.  But with mother and brother out trick-or-treating and boyfriend Jace on his way to a party, conversations about clinics or discussions of diapers will have to wait for Halloween to pass.

Home alone for the holiday, Dora answers each door knock to be greeted by mask-wearing mischief-makers bearing candy sacks and silent stares.  These are no ordinary costumed kids, however.  These are nightmares in flesh form with a secretly sinister agenda to terrorize Dora, and to tear out her unborn baby.

Mixing elements of “Ils” and “The Strangers” with “Inside” (review here) and “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” the strong start to “Hellions” comes from an early uncertainty as to what type of thriller it even is.  The setup teases touches of paranormal pregnancy, home invasion horror, and supernatural slasher in ways where the distinct lack of rules for how perception is played with creates a “stay on guard” sense of heightened alert and constant questions.

It isn’t just the who and the why of the diminutive demons that is unknown.  Everything about the film’s fiction is up in the air.  This increasingly bizarre mystery marks an initially fascinating way for the film to foster suspense while the audience takes the same arc as Dora in frantically finding out exactly what is happening to the tormented teen and her weird surrounding world.

“Hellions” keeps its hooks firmly embedded with atypical visuals hypnotizing in parallel to the tone.  “Hellions” may be the only horror movie choosing to filter its hue through a chromatic pink color instead of the usual giallo green, red, or deep blue most films use.  There is probably some metaphoric meaning relating to the pregnancy plotline or the October sky’s blood moon overhead, but the look is so unique that it commands engagement simply for being a seldom seen style.

Then “Hellions” enters its wind-down and the piper suddenly ceases his mesmerizing tune.  The film turns out to take place in some sort of vaguely defined state of surrealness, which in and of itself is not an issue.  Lack of logic in a dreamlike realm is to be expected.  But McDonald and screenwriter Pascal Trottier dunk content and context so deep into questionable symbolism that an audience is poised to feel duped into investing in an incomplete narrative.

Just as the movie loses itself in allegorical substance, one can become lost trying to divine meaning behind Dora’s mindset manifestations and fears of parenthood made flesh, and still not come closer to understanding the true intent of the film.  Even if McDonald and Trottier revealed a definitive definition for every seemingly random element in the movie, there would still be a question regarding how much believability to place in the notion that hiding this much interpretive subtext was their intention from the start.

The surreal setting bears down hard and a nyah-nyah-nyah soundtrack of children’s voices grows gratingly cacophonous.  By this point, plenty of people will mentally, and perhaps literally, head for the exit with understandable justification on their side.  For anyone more overwhelmed by the force and feel of the film’s first half, imagery still burns strong, even with possibly illegitimate purpose.

“Hellions” has a terrific style, though it uses that style to explore territory too abstract to qualify the Halloween-set film as essential October 31st viewing alongside “Trick 'r Treat,” “Halloween,” or “Halloween III: Season of the Witch.”  Yet when separated from the fluff of its disappointing denouement, there remains a disturbingly dark fairy tale in the movie's core capable of leaving a lasting impression.

There’s no accurate way to predict on which side of the line any given person will stand once the cloud clears.  The only prudent advice is to tell potential viewers of “Hellions” to be ready for either possible outcome: admiration or aversion.

Review Score:  75

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