Directed by Scott Jeffrey and Rebecca Matthews, HellKat tells the story of Katrina ‘HellKat’ Bash (Sarah T. Cohen), an MMA fighter on a downward slope who appears to have driven off on some sort of soul-searching journey after losing her latest fight. Bash must take part in a tournament in Hell to save the soul of her son. This builds our expectations a fair amount – I know it certainly got me interested.
It’s a slow-burner for a film that comes in at just under 1 hour 20 minutes in runtime – it takes just under 40 minutes to get to the actual fight tournament. That 40-minute build-up establishes the main characters and that they’re actually in Hell/Limbo, or some unnamed Netherworld, and not journeying across America as I’d initially thought. Story-wise, there’s not a whole lot there and no real surprises. It’s a run-of-the-mill “attempt at redemption” story.
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Bash is not exactly a deep, multi-layered, character. I didn’t really find her likeable nor feel much sympathy towards her. It’s not even like she’s a rounded anti-hero like Clooney in Dusk till Dawn, for example. He’s a bastard, but we root for him and want to see him get through things. Bash is just a bit flat. Initially, I wanted to know how and why she’d ended up where she was, this intrigued me, but I’d stopped caring by the time the specific details were revealed. She seemed to just amble along, accepting the things going on around her when we, the audience, are likely saying “what the f**k?!”
The effects are hit and miss. Some practical effects look very good while others are akin to bad monster masks slapped on stuntmen. What little CGI there is is often composited poorly but, hey, we need to remember this is low budget after all. Unfortunately, when we get to the fighting, it just lacks punch (ha!). There’s little drama there, despite the choreography, and the skills of the fighters are let down by the shot set-up and subsequent editing. It probably doesn’t help that the ‘action’ is in a poorly lit boxing ring with no audience to drum up the atmosphere. The sound effects also rely too heavily on the sickening crunch sound, which just relieves that of any power or effectiveness it may have had.
Despite all that, there were some highlights to the film. Ryan Davies’ lead antagonist, demon Jimmy Scott, loves the sound of his own voice and often steals whatever scene he’s in. The plague-mask wearing “Doctor” (Clive Coen) who patches up the fighters between bouts is bird-like in his demeanour, being both creepy and weird in equal amounts. We never know just what he’s going to do with his array of power tools to actually help any of those that are injured.
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It’s a pity we don’t see more of some of the supporting characters like the Barkeep (Adrian Bouchet), who gives Bash a job (of sorts, paid in tequila and cigarettes) and place to stay, and Salt (Abi Casson Thompson), another fighter trapped in the same predicament as Bash who is initially tough but quickly unravels upon realising her own hopeless situation. The final fight that Bash takes part in is much better than the previous fights and it’s a pity they weren’t all at that level. Though it’s still a long way from a solid martial arts movie level of action.
Overall, I found HellKat to be a film where I constantly wanted to find out what happened next. Partly because I was hoping it would get better, or the fight scenes were going to be amazing or we were going to get some kind of unexpected twist. Unfortunately, I got none of that. That’s not to say the film isn’t fun in places. However, the fun moments are sparse.
HellKat is now available on DVD and Digital from Uncork’d Entertainment.
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