ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

GazerRise Fantastic!

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

GL84 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.

spmact The trailer for this seemed promising enough, but after watching I felt somewhat cheated. The comedy wasn't really there. I don't even remember laughing once. The characters weren't that interesting, except for maybe Clancy Brown's, but they didn't dig deep enough to make us really connect with him. The story was alright, but just wasn't executed well enough.I normally like Brown, Clifton Collins Jr and especially Dan Fogler, but they couldn't save this unfortunately.I'd pass this one up, unless you have some time to waste or are sure you have the same tastes as the people who gave this a good review.

rushknight Watch this movie.It's fun and absolutely irreverent while being faithful at the same time. The basic plot idea is fairly novel, and works well with the story despite the obvious logical and religious fallacies that present themselves in such a scenario.In the same way that the "Adams Family" brought a breath of fresh air to the TV sitcom industry, this film brings a breath of fresh (well, freshly laden with the scent of whiskey perhaps..) air to the idea of exorcism. The Adams are evil, dark, twisted and backward, and yet somehow manage to deeply embody the cherished values of any strong family.This film works somewhat the same, but with a lot more swearing, sexual innuendos and gory battles. The priests are absolutely the worst of the worst, and purposely keep themselves yoked with the burden of as much sin as they can in order to "fight fire with fire." It's a new take on the idea for certain. The originality makes it fun, and you can tell that the writers got it down quick, with all of the energy that having a good idea can generate.This is a movie that was made purely for the sake of outlandish enjoyment. It has few pretenses, and doesn't bother taking itself seriously at all.If you don't mind a little swearing, some poking at religion, a few sexual references and some fake blood, then I suspect you will enjoy this movie. So put your cynicism and expectations on the sideline for a little while and watch this. It's a good time.And if you decide to watch it, know that my personal favorite part was the scene with the cracker.. and make sure you read the credits.

Greg Having its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Hellbenders comes to us from the mind of writer/director JT Petty who was the man calling the shorts behind Mimic 3: Sentinel (2003) and The Burrowers (2008).The film takes us inside the Hellbound Saints of Brooklyn Parish where the members are a group of vile quasi-Catholic priests who spend their days soaked in immorality in efforts to overtly break each of the seven deadly sins. Their licentiousness is recorded by a fellow member of the parish (Andre Royo) and the intention is to be so morally reprehensible that you can be possessed by a demon and then pull that demon into hell with you after taking your own life. This is the motivation for members to be "damnation-ready" for when the time is needed for them to spring into action.The 'church' is always in a state of readiness. And when the phone rings with reports of a demon sighting, the members jump into action to both bloody and comedic effect. Think of them like the Ghostbusters, except this team likes to smoke, get drunk and commit as many sins as possible for heading out on assignment.Things get hairy when two of the members try to exorcise a demon only to have one of them become possessed with an evil spirit intent on wiping out all of humanity. The remaining members must then put their feelings for the possessed priest aside as they attempt to thwart the demons world destruction plans.With a cast that includes Clancy Brown, Dan Fogler, Macon Blair and Robyn Rikoon, Hellbenders was an interested but flawed profane 85-minute ride that stretched its interesting story about as far as audiences would concede.The equal balance of comedy and supernatural elements worked fairly well and the cast seemed to be invested in the source material which was extracted from JT Petty's own graphic novel.But the story just didn't grab us by the throat they way the director (I am sure) intended. Although these beings attempt to be as vile and profane as possible, they still didn't come across as evil and nasty as you would have hoped for such a dark comedy. And a whole storyline about the Parish being shut down by the church just felt like a diversion from the core story that was far more interesting.The effects in the film were top rate. We were surprised at our screening to be passed 3D glasses, but as the movie progressed, we were conscious of the extra dimension and thought it was one of the better uses of the gimmick we have seen on screen. The make up and special effects were also comparable to big blockbuster type budgets.But for a film demonic possession, it felt rather hollow and didn't give us enough of what the synopsis of the film promised. By the time the curtain was lowered and the cinema lights came back on, we had wished that JT Petty had spent more time on the characters themselves than on the story. We would have far more appreciated a feature just watching these guys sin and try and top each other rather than watching them demon hunt.www.killerreviews.com