Fantasia Festival 2025: ‘Hellcat’ pounces with raw intensity

There’s something to be said about the power of one-location horror. The story becomes pressurized, contained to the talent in front of and behind the camera. Actors must rely on the potency of the script, which they then wield with their own devices. Writer/director Brock Bodell sells you a confined story about an animal bite and a disease, wrapped inside a test of human endurance and willpower. Hellcat, playing this year’s Fantasia Fest, neither reveals its hand too early nor overstays its welcome. It’s cooked to absolute purrfection (get it?) as it works as both a ferocious horror flick and a tense, nail-biting thriller. It teeters along genre lines, allowing Bodell to always toy with the audience’s perception of events.

Dakota Gorman plays Lena with a sly earnestness. Once she awakens inside a moving airstream, she’s dazed and confused, unable to put the pieces together of the last few hours. Her captor, an unassuming man named Clive (Todd Terry), comes over the intercom to reveal that he witnessed her getting bitten by a rapid animal while camping in the woods, and she’s now been infected and in desperate need of medical attention. The airstream’s something of an escape room, and Lena must figure out a way out of her trap or die trying. Should she believe what this lunatic is blabbering? And should she fight for survival despite all odds piled against her?

Bodell stacks the narrative blocks like a game of Jenga. As he removes the slabs of wood, you’re just waiting for the increasingly fragile tower to collapse. Clocking in at 91 minutes, the filmmaker trusts his limited cast to carry the story, and it never feels overly long. In fact, by the end, you may even be begging for more. As the volcanic tension builds, there are numerous chances for it to erupt, yet Bodell pulls in the reins at just the right moments. These teasers keep you baited. Caught in a flytrap, Lena is at the mercy of a mysterious abductor who seems like just a normal, next-door sort just trying to do what’s right – or at least what’s right inside his head.

Hellcat falls in line with other such outstanding one-location indies like The Oak Room and We Need to Do Something. Like those, the film’s success lies firmly in the hands of the cast’s ability to let the work guide their instincts. Bodell wavers not in his direction, making the airstream feel even more suffocating as it barrels down a lonesome highway. Gorman bites her teeth into the material in a way that’s complex and innately personal. There’s something fierce about her presence onscreen; she’s a perfect emotional counterbalance to Terry’s even-keeled, yet somehow equally volatile, response.

A strong, meditative script gives Gorman and Terry plenty of story to dig their heels into, uncovering layers about the good in human nature and the infection as a metaphor for being different. Bodell allows these thematic elements to haunt like shadows, never appearing too clearly but rather in faint patterns for the audience to render themselves. Hellcat emerges from the festival as one of the surefire delights that’ll keep you entranced from start to shocking finish.