Taglines: Deliver them to evil.
There are demons so terrible that no mortal man of God could successfully drive them back to Hell. The only option is for the exorcist himself to invite possession and then commit suicide, dragging along the demon to damnation – so the Augustine Interfaith Order of Hellbound Saints – or Hellbenders – was formed. A group of elite, highly-trained exorcists, they live in a constant state of debauchery so they will be ready to go to Hell at any moment. When an infernal Norse demon called BLACK SURTR escapes into New York City intent on cracking open the gates of Hell, the Hellbenders must use every ounce of their debauchery to battle the demon and save the planet from eternal damnation.
Director’s Statement (2013)
I’m just barely old enough to have experienced the anxiety of possible nuclear annihilation. In the early ‘80s we still had bomb drills at my Catholic school outside Washington, D.C. I’ve always been grateful for the nightmares of slow, rotting death via radiation poisoning, if only for giving me the context to later understand what an awesomely inspiring movie DR. STRANGELOVE is.
Kubrick treats nuclear war as absolutely real, dangerous and terrifying, but still manages somehow to laugh at it. It’s thrilling and cathartic, a premise filled with amazing visuals and the kind of ecstatic, paradoxical misbehavior that pulls iconic performances from its cast. I can only imagine what a frightening and inspiring movie it must have been in ’64.
I’ll let other filmmakers pretend they can grow up to be Stanley Kubrick, and I don’t think HELLBENDERS is as scary as STRANGELOVE – I’d rather face demonic possession than nuclear annihilation, and to be honest, I’d probably rather face Hell than total oblivion. (This is a director’s statement about a comedy, I promise.)
It’s now 2012, and more Americans believe in The Devil than they do the Theory of Evolution, and by a widening margin. The Devil is real in America and exorcism is a film conceit that can still frighten a jaded movie-going audience.
When the extended cut of THE EXORCIST made a theatrical run in 2000, I attended a screening at Radio City Music hall and watched it with more than a thousand people. It was still effective twenty‐seven years later, and I don’t think anybody in the audience was less than terrified. The most remarkable part of the experience for me, though, was how much the audience laughed. I can’t imagine anybody thought the movie was ridiculous; I think it was laughter as release, a communal cry of “Uncle!” We had all just been so thoroughly emotionally pummeled, so overstuffed with sensory input that we would have opened any valve we could. As an audience, as a crowd of strangers at the mercy of the same overwhelming spectacle, laughter was all we could reach for. (I laugh and cringe at UFC fights by the same instinct.) But does that mean THE EXORCIST is a funny movie? I kind of think it does.
I don’t remember how the concept for HELLBENDERS first landed on me, the idea that a preacher would necessarily need to court sin and debauchery in order to be spiritually prepared for total war with Hell, but once I had it, it was impossible to think about an exorcism story on any other terms. And I thought that was really, really funny.
There’s been no shortage of exorcism movies in the past few years and the conceits are starting to stretch pretty thin. But when you make all those ideas explicit ‐ all of the rules, the discipline, the antispiritual bureaucracy of any church -‐ it gets ridiculous enough to be fun.
And it’s such an opportunity for character. It was great fun thinking of the kinds of ministers and priests who would end up as Hellbound Saints; the compulsively-‐ sinful man the church wouldn’t take in any other branch, the overly‐pious man who hates sin and sinning but will make that sacrifice to fight Satan, the female minister who wants to be doing spiritual battle on a scale she couldn’t with the Unitarians. The entire cast (Clifton Collins Jr! Dan Fogler! Andre Royo!) was so good and so clearly got the fun and weird innocence of the concept. I grew up thinking of Clancy Brown as the heaviest of the heavies; he spends half this movie wearing nothing but a rug and a woman’s purple bathrobe.
But HELLBENDERS isn’t satire. I don’t have any interest in camp. The hardest part of the movie was balancing the gonzo characters and real idea of violence, both spiritual and physical. From the few small screenings we’ve had so far, the hardest laughs and biggest reaction we’ve had came from Catholics, people who were raised on a weekly diet of church.
What I hope is funny about HELLBENDERS is what’s scary about THE EXORCIST- Hell might be real. Our kind and benevolent Creator may be holding the threat of eternal damnation and unimaginable suffering over our heads until the day we die. Hilarious!
Hellbenders 3D
Directed by: J.T. Petty
Starring: Clifton Collins Jr., Clancy Brown, Andre Royo, Robyn Rikoon, Macon Blair
Screenplay by: J.T. Petty
MPAA Rating: R for bloody violence, some disturbing images, pervasive language, sexual content and drug use.
Studio: Lionsgate Films
Release Date: October 18, 2013
Visits: 62
