Waking up in a stranger’s moving vehicle is anybody’s idea of a nightmare, and it’s exactly how we meet Lena (Dakota Gorman) in Hellcat. But it’s not where we leave her.
Writer/director Brock Bodell’s feature film debut careens through 90 minutes of nail-biting threats, leading to a wild conclusion that will have you howling. The spoiler of it all has had critics finding ways to describe the film without giving anything away.
“Over and over, critics danced around the secret at the heart of the film, but none would reveal it,” Mashable Entertainment Editor Kristy Puchko writes in her spoiler-free review. “Now, having seen Hellcat, I understand not only the secret it keeps but also why my friends and colleagues kept mum.”
But now, the film is out on Shudder, and we can talk about it. What happens at the end of Hellcat, and what does it all mean? We recommend watching the film first, then coming back here for the analysis. Because major spoilers ahead.
What is Hellcat about?
Credit: Shudder
In a truly horrific scenario, Nashville woman Lena finds herself trapped in the trailer of a man who introduces himself — through an intercom embedded in a taxidermied coyote head — as Clive (Todd Terry).
“You’ve been infected,” Clive says, and he’s right. Lena has a wound on her upper arm, and from it spreads black veins indicating infection. He insists he’s a “good” and “honest man” who found Lena wounded at her campsite, bandaged her wounds, and confined her in his trailer. Lena doesn’t remember what brought her to this place, so all she has to go on is Clive’s narrative and what she finds in the camper.
Investigating her moving prison, Lena finds raw, bloody meat and syringes full of sedative in the fridge. She discovers a locked room fitted out with a blood-stained bed, thick shackles, and bars on the windows, and in the bed is another woman (Liz Atwater). Every last awful discovery suggests Clive to be a sadistic villain.
Who is the other woman in Clive’s trailer?
Credit: Shudder
Early on while she’s exploring the trailer, Lena finds a photo of a woman holding a little girl. Through the intercom, Clive reveals that’s his wife and their daughter, Holly. It’s Holly who was locked up in the back, though Lena won’t realize this until the final act. What Clive tells her is that his daughter was “attacked” when she was at college. “She don’t see eye to eye with her old man these days,” he says. “Things just… changed between us.”
This reflects Lena’s strained relationship with her own father, who doesn’t know how to talk to her after the passing of her mom. But the bigger change between Clive and Holly is that the latter is a werewolf. After she was bitten in college, her dad began locking her up and sedating her during full moons to keep her from hurting herself or anyone else. When he failed and Lena got bit, he abducted her too. And he doesn’t tell Lena the truth about Holly, because he’s trying to protect his daughter above all else.
However, as Holly is moved from the rolling prison to the passenger seat of her father’s pick-up truck, she pushes back against his plan. She says, “I know you want to help, but it can’t be this way.”
What’s Clive’s plan?
Credit: Shudder
Knowing the infection spreads fast, Clive is headed to a specialist, one Dr. Jancowski, who is “the top research physician at Stanford, who lost his license because some Berkley nutjobs didn’t like him testing on animals.” They’ve been driving for four hours across Tennessee, from Nashville to Knoxville, where Dr. Jancowski is said to be a veterinarian at the dinner show at amusement park Golly World, and their only hope of helping Lena. Clive insists, “He’s as legit as they come.”
Clive is a big believer in cryptids and the paranormal. His camper is littered with such literature, including Celestial Delights sci-fi comics, books on alien abductions, and a book on werewolves titled The Bite That Drips, written by Jasper Deville. He’s even self-published his own book, Transformance, which Lena also finds in the trailer. So, when seeking some advice after Lena bites Clive, he turns to an expert, calling to Deville’s (James Austin Johnson) midnight radio show, We’re Out There.
This is how Clive first heard about Dr. Jancowski. But when he tells Deville, “I’ve got a were,” the broadcaster’s confident on-air persona shudders. And unfortunately for Clive, the host breaks the news to him off-air that Dr. Jancowski is fictional. “I kind of thought you knew what we were all doing here,” Deville says. “This ain’t exactly NPR.”
Before the show’s over, a new threat enters in the form of another caller, who claims he’s spotted Clive’s trailer on the road and recommends to Lena “hide the silver.”
What happens at the end of Hellcat?
Credit: Shudder
Urged by Holly, Clive lets Lena loose in the middle of nowhere. There, she flags down a cop (Jordan Mullins) and asks for a ride to the hospital. However, the officer’s intentions are far from noble. He soon reveals he’s the creepy caller from the radio show — and he’s a big fan of Clive’s writing on werewolves, showing Lena his own copy of Transformance.
The cop calls into We’re Out There, announcing he’s “got the were in my cruiser” and is “going to take care of this.” Clive, of course, is tuning into his favourite show at this very moment, which is convenient for Lena, as her former captor becomes her only hope. When Clive and Holly catch up to the cop, a battle ensues. Lena escapes the cruiser, Clive is shot, and the cop is killed.
It’s not over though, as the full moon rises, and Clive guides Lena through sudden, blood-boiling labour. It’s pure horror, cut with shots of the full moon, as Lena gives birth to a tiny little werewolf. It seems the infection impacted her unborn child, not Lena.
Lena and Clive have a moment, in which he explains he “didn’t mean to scare” her, before passing out, in what looks like his final breath. With her baby in her arms, she wanders back to the road, where Holly pulls up in her dad’s truck.
Forming an unlikely little were-family of three, Lena, Holly, and the cub have “no earthly idea” where they’re going. We’re left to watch them drive away, with only the trailer’s license plate, “HELLCAT,” to reflect on.
Is Clive dead? Or…
But hark! What’s this? Hellcat cuts to Clive, sitting by the lake in the morning light, seemingly sleeping instead of dead. We hear the sounds of a ukulele, crashing waves, and happy giggling, the sound of a memory perhaps. And it’s interrupted by a horrible gasp, like a monstrous awakening.
Earlier in the film, Lena managed to bite him in an attempt to escape. Since then, Clive has feared that might turn him too. Does this final gasp mean not only that Clive is not dead but also that he and Holly now have something more in common?
We’ll keep an eye out for confirmation, or at least news of Hellcat 2.
Hellcat is now streaming on Shudder.
Source: https://mashable.com/entertainment/hellcat-ending-explained
