Hellbent is, primarily, a punkified retelling of the Faust legend, in which down-on-his-luck singer Lemmy (Phil Ward) makes a deal with devilish promoter Mr. Tanas (an anagram of Satan... how clever!) and becomes hooked on cough syrup with whisky chasers; the film also features a sub-plot that sees young mother Sally (Cheryl Slean) taking drastic action to rescue her kidnapped baby from Tanas's henchmen. The two plot threads come together for a bullet-riddled finale.
This is one weird movie... so strange at times that one wonders if the cast and crew weren't chugging back the Robitussin and whisky themselves whilst filming. While some may enjoy the film's offbeat 'do-whatever-the-hell-we-want-how-we-want' approach, I found its punk attitude extremely tedious, the bizarre dialogue, aimless direction and awful acting almost having me reaching for the Tixylix and Wild Turkey myself (the film has got to be less painful while under the influence).
Writer/director Richard Casey definitely makes some bold, nay, head-scratching choices: a guy smashes a watermelon with his forehead for no reason; a wild audience beat each other up; the kidnapped baby is made to huff industrial solvent; Lemmy is mistaken for a performance artist; and, strangest of all, Tanas's right-hand-man Duke (Phil Therrien)-who is holding Sally at gunpoint-puts down his weapon to have an impromptu hand shandy, allowing Sally to pick up the revolver and shoot him in the chest.
A curiosity, for sure, and definitely a product of its time, which sometimes is enough for me to have a good time, but on this occasion I wasn't feeling it.
