Movie Review: HELLHOUNDS

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: January 19th, 2024 / 02:41 AM

HELLHOUNDS movie poster | ©2024 Uncork’d Entertainment

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Nathaniel J. Burns, Eva Hamilton, Cameron Kotecki, Dana Kippel, Amelia Haberman, Tim Sauer, Anna Harr, Daniel Link, Angel Ruiz, Becky Jo Harris
Writer: Robert Conway
Director: Robert Conway
Distributor: Uncork’d Entertainment
Release Date: January 9, 2024

HELLHOUNDS is a low-budget werewolf movie with narrative ambitions that outstrip its scope. Writer/director Robert Conway has an epic tale in mind, but because resources are limited, a lot of it happens in expository dialogue.

We open on a man (Daniel Link) choking out a young woman (Amelia Haberman) in the desert.

Then we cut to bail bondswoman Mia (Dana Kippel), who is trying to find someone named Dave Carroll. Her search leads her to biker Alias (Nathaniel J. Burns), a member of the Hellhounds gang. In taking care of some bad business that lands on his doorstep, Alias demonstrates to Mia that he may be helpful in her quest.

While Mia doesn’t know it yet, viewers who’ve read the advertising for HELLHOUNDS know that the biker group’s moniker has a more literal meaning than most people might expect. Alias has his own reasons for seeking Carroll, and, after the expected show of reluctance, agrees to team up with Mia.

Elsewhere, a young man named Kevin (Cameron Kotecki) is sweating with fever in his mobile home bed, a huge bite mark on his arm. His wife Virginia (Becky Jo Harris) is understandably worried.

Due to moving around between multiple sets of characters, it takes us a while to figure out which ones are werewolves, which ones aren’t but know about werewolves, and which ones don’t yet have information about what’s going on. This isn’t played for mystery, but instead leaves us like we’re feeling catch-up. Here, genre-literate viewers may wind up more confused than those less conversant with supernatural lore – the tattoos down Mia’s spine turn out not to have anything to do with the plot in general, much less lycanthropy.

When we do get up to speed, we wonder at one person’s choices – for someone supposedly so experienced, they have incredibly poor judgment regarding how specific others will react. We also realize that the action Alias is describing (why he’s looking for Carroll) sounds a lot more dynamic than the story that’s playing in front of us.

Filmmaker Conway has cast bikers who really look like bikers, as opposed to what we often get when motorcycle gang types are front and center. He also stages an impressively rowdy roadhouse scene.

The various plot strands eventually do come together. But by then, HELLHOUNDS doesn’t work well as horror, thriller, or detective tale. We don’t get the full effect of a werewolf biker gang. The werewolf transformations are straight, fast morphs, which may well be all that was affordable, but they’re not very satisfying to watch. It makes good use of locations and night exteriors, but HELLHOUNDS will mainly appeal to werewolf completionists and those who salute all low-budget horror that makes it through production, post-production and into distribution.

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