Budget Horror Movie Hellbender Gives Viewers Plenty To Chew On

Hellbender. Available now on Shudder.

Just out of college, I worked at a small newspaper in the Mississippi Delta. After a few months, the owners brought in a new executive editor, a barking, desk-pounding type straight out of The Front Page. When he announced on his first Friday afternoon that the newsroom’s four reporters were going to accompany him to the saloon, opting out did not seem wise, or even possible.

At the bar, he began ordering trays full of tequila shots for us. And more. And more. One of the reporters foresaw disaster, pretended he had to go to the bathroom, and slipped away. Another awoke in the city drunk tank, his car impounded. One opened his eyes in the morning to find himself in a strange bed in a strange house alongside a strange woman. And I found myself lying on my back porch in a pool of, well, you can guess, with neither any memory of how I got home or any knowledge of where my keys were. I had to break a window to get in.

I mention this because, after watching the streaming horror network Shudder’s Hellbender, I realize mine is only the second-worst introduction to shots in the recorded history of tequila debauchery. When Hellbender‘s teenaged Izzy loses a drinking contest with her friends and has to do a shot with a worm in it, she starts channeling shrieking witches and craving an all-Renfieldian diet. You can practically see a little thought-bubble over her mom’s head, longing for the good old days of Tide pods.

Made for about $1.29 by a husband-wife dire