Hellcat
An apparent Fantasia darling, Brock Bodell’s debut feature confounds instead. Claustrophobia can be a wonderful tool in film. When a character is boxed in we can decorate that and show it in so many different ways. Custom framing around what is or becomes important to the moment exhibits artistic flair and clues the audience into a particular psyche or way of thinking in a situation without uttering a word. By boxing yourself in, new worlds open up completely; filmmakers can bend or break rules, disregard order of events, dress and bathe sets in light or decorations that can convey internal battles, rough patches they got through, better days. This isn’t exclusive to claustrophobia in cinema but when there isn’t much externally to focus on the camera can create things for us to see within a set perspective. Hellcat sets out to try this in its first act but ultimately pulls away from this constraint, ripping out and ruining what it set to develop like a sawtooth blade rending a n...