Shudder has dropped the first trailer for Hellbender. An award-winning film that's impressed audiences and critics in the festival circuit, the coming-of-age horror film is set to make its debut on Shudder on Feb. 24. Ahead of the premiere, you can take a look at the new trailer below.
The official synopsis for Hellbender reads: "16-year-old Izzy leads an isolated life on a lonely mountaintop. All she’s learned is from her protective mom and the wilderness that swallows them. Izzy dreams of a live gig, but her mother thinks she’s too sick and mustn’t be around others. Questioning her illness and starved for companionship, Izzy sneaks down the mountain where she befriends brazen Amber. Izzy is in heaven until a cruel drinking game with a live worm unleashes a new kind of hunger."
Developing Hellbender Was a Family Affair
Hellbender had its world premiere at the 25th Fantasia International Film Festival in August 2021. It is the sixth feature film written and directed by the filmmaking Adams family, Toby Poser, John Adams, and their daughter Zelda Adams (The Deeper You Dig, Halfway to Zen, The Shoot). Zelda stars in the film, along with her mother and sister Lulu, and took home the Best Actress award at the Fantasia International Film Festival. The family also produced the music for the feature with tracks from their experimental punk band H6LLB6ND6R.
"Well, we’ve been making films together for 11 years now, and we’ve kind of figured out who is good at what, but we really try to do pretty much everything all together. Whoever is not, like, being filmed and acting on camera is the one behind it, controlling the camera and directing," Zelda told Film Cred.
"It was really fun, playing Izzy and considering the parental themes that were coming into play," she added. "Toby is NOT a strict mom, and I’m very grateful for that. In the movie, though, the mom is trying to keep these things away from Izzy, which just makes Izzy want to do them even more, and she’s just going to try to find out how to do them on her own without getting good advice or talking about it. You see that in real life all the time: strict creates sneaky, so it was really fun covering that theme since it’s really different from how we live in real life."
Of joining the Shudder family, John Adams also said: "We all agree: one of the great things about Shudder is, well, there’s lots of different kinds of horror and lots of different kinds of horror fans, and we really enjoy the community Shudder has built around that. It was a pretty huge honor that Shudder bought our movie from us, because that’s exactly where we wanted it to be, so we’re super-duper thrilled, and they’re incredibly nice, because they do treat us like what we are, which is a family of three that’s having a lot of fun making movies together. They talk to us like that, and they treat us like that, and it’s a great relationship so far."
Hellbender is set to start streaming on Shudder on Feb. 24, 2022.