Fantasia Fest 2021: ‘Hellbender,’ ‘Martyrs Lane,’ ‘Glasshouse,’ and ‘When I Consume You’

Well, Fantasia Fest 2021 nears the end. With only two days remaining, and a slew of reviews filed, B-Sides & Badlands is also winding down coverage. From early favorites like Agnes (review) and Brain Freeze (review) to late game-changers including The Righteous (review) and The Last Thing Mary Saw (review), the festival run this year has been one helluva experience.

Alongside our full review coverage, we will also be highlighting numerous other features in bite-sized capsule reviews. In our second (and last) installment, we journey into a post-apocalyptic world and a den of witches, before emerging from an allegory about addiction.

Hellbender

What lies among the slender, crackling reeds of Hereditary, a polished art-house affair, is woven into the fabric of Hellbender, the latest offering from the Adams Family — a creative team composed of John Adams, Toby Poser, and Zelda Adams. The trio return to write, direct, and co-star in a brutally-gritty coming-of-age saga in which a young girl named Izzy (Zelda Adams) must confront a hunger for friendship while balancing her mysterious sickness, which, her mother (Poser) claims, makes her dangerous to other people. Her worth in the world is weighed in pounds of flesh, so it seems, and the bonds of blood might be swarthier and more impossible to severe than she anticipated. The film takes a good 30 minutes to come to a rolling boil — and once it does, you’ve got double, double, toil and trouble…

Izzy feels suffocated, cut-off from civilization as her and her mother live a survivalist lifestyle in the middle of the woods. When Izzy, on one of her daily excursions into the forest, stumbles across Amber (Lulu Adams), a young girl swimming in a neighbor’s pool, she realizes how closed-off she’s been from truly living. An exciting existence feels imminent, yet her mother remains hellbent on keeping hidden from the world. But there’s always more than meets the eye. The Adams Family unravel a delectable and devilish yarn; it’s a witchy punk-rock acid trip with some of the most potent, ghastly, and frantic imagery you’ll find this year.

Martyrs Lane

The past will always haunt you if you let it. In Ruth Platt’s Martyrs Lane, a young girl named Leah (Kiera Thompson) struggles in her relationship with her mother Sarah (Denise Gough), who’s quite tender in moments, detached and cold in others. With an older sister Bex (Hannah Rae) constantly teasing her, Leah longs for true companionship, finding it in a midnight pal (Sienna Sayer) who awaits outside her window. Her unnamed visitor possesses feathered wings and an angelic smile, only coming out of her sadness when Leah tells her jokes and plays the game two truths and one lie. They make quite a pair, playing underneath the sheets, giggling, and sharing favorite stories.

Leah’s new friend has a deep, dark secret, however, and as their playtime progresses, her appearance changes — purple veins appear on her neck, and her nose begins to bleed. Meanwhile, contents of Sarah’s locket go missing, sending her into an emotional spiral, which might just be the key to unlock the mystery behind the wayward guest. Martyrs Lane features unbelievably strong, emotional, and grounded performances from both Thompson and Sayer, hinting they have promising careers not only in horror, and wonderfully poetic themes about redemption, forgiveness, and grief. In the end, it doesn’t entirely land on solid ground, but it’s a setpiece worthy of plenty of conversation.

When I Consume You

There are few miseries worse than watching a loved one fight addiction and lose. When I lost my sister last fall, I never expected grief to sting so deeply — and that comes from someone who’s already experienced a tremendous amount of loss in life. “Evil can never be defeated,” suggests writer/director Perry Blackshear in the statement regarding his new feature film When I Consume You. As nihilistic as you might expect such story to be (and it quite is, in many ways), there’s hope lining the gritty, jagged edges of his picture.

The story follows siblings Daphne (Libby Ewing) and Wilson (Evan Dumouchel). They’ve been through it all, clawing their way out of a troubled childhood and into early adulthood riddled with substance abuse and various other addictions. Every intoxicating high and sorrowful low waxes bright on their skin. It’s been five years since Daphne’s lowest low; she was discovered by Wilson out on the street totally strung-out and unable to even recognize him. Now, she’s fully possessed, excelling in her work, and wanting to start a family through adopting a child. But addiction never lets her sleep. In fact, it haunts her dreams and every waking minute. When a stalker shows up on her doorstep, this unwanted intrusion seeks to destroy everything for which she’s worked so hard. When I Consume You can be read quite literally (a crime thriller both in style and structure) or something far more allegorical, depicting addiction with a fang-toothed precision.

Glasshouse

In a post-apocalyptic world, anything can happen. Zombies, contagions, the death of mankind itself — oh my! It’s a breeding ground for some of the most inventive stories to take place. With Glasshouse, writer-director Kelsey Egan constructs a haven out of destruction, as the world as we once knew it has been leveled by a lethal neurochemical that erodes one’s memory. One family — Mother and children Bee, Evie, Daisy, and Gabe — seems to have survived inside their glasshouse, only going outside with masks to collect food and necessary supplies. Their world is small, but they make do and seem happy, all things considered.

When a stranger crosses into their habitat, seemingly ignoring signs to keep out, their world is torn to shreds by more than just the contagion. They must confront a past they had long buried behind new-found traditions and rituals and learn that what they thought they knew is not the truth. The Stranger is seductive, leading Bee to believe that he is her long-lost brother Luca, who once ventured out into the world and never returned. Glasshouse is a wondrous, glossy sci-fi fantasy, packed with provocative inquiries about the human mind, delusion, desperation, and the lengths humans will go to to keep proper order intact. As human beings, all we really have are memories, and we only live as long as the last person who remembers us.

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