Hellbenders (2012)
9/10
Enjoyable horror effort with lame comedy
28 May 2015
After a rash of reports about possessed people, a group of blasphemous priests intent on bringing deadly demons back to Hell find their greatest challenge in a resurrected demon attempting to reopen the gates of Hell.

Overall this one was quite an enjoyable and entertaining effort. What really tends to work the best in here is the utter joy this takes in warping the traditional take on the pious priests by here completely revealing and even encouraging others to partake in sinful behavior in order to do their jobs better. That's the fun of seeing them curse every other word, steal, cheat and engage in numerous acts that would be considered too profane for most normal priests. In turn, the film's best feature is the fact that these scenes are usually there to base off the main exorcism and possession scenes that occur here as there's several rather impressive ones from the opening scene showing them taking out a demon while having him throw them around the darkened basement where he's chained up while also finishing off the exorcism rites. Even later scenes where they try to save the possessed son who in turns starts the film's main plot makes for a great scene with the failed rites and generally enjoyable action allows the escaped being to really get a lot of impressive elements out by showcasing all the frantic action in the confined space with the failure of their performances for a wholly enjoyable sequence altogether, and the finale in the burning pit manages to evoke quite a large amount of fun with the fury of the demonic hordes ripping into the priests attempting to stop it, the violence against them in an attempt to halt the demonic incantations and the fun of having the whole thing done with firelight for a generally impressive and enjoyable offering. Along with the impressive demon make-up for the possessed creatures and rather frantic storyline that keeps everything moving along nicely that really works here, these are more than enough to hold out the lone flawed part of this whole thing in it's incredibly lame and stupid one-note comedy. The fact that all this has to rely on for it's comedy is the general rule-breaking and sinful behavior of the target priests, it soon grows old after realizing all they're doing is just that. It doesn't feature any real variety, doesn't take as much chances as it thinks it does, and worse off plays out better as a straight-forward horror effort without much need for comedy than it does as a horror/comedy, despite the ingeniousness of it's premise. Otherwise, this one was a lot of fun.

Rated R: Extreme Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Full Nudity, comedic homosexual sex scenes and comedic blasphemy.
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