Given its title, I thought 2021’s Hellbender would offer a continuation of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser franchise. Instead, it offers an unrelated effort from a filmmaking collective known as “the Adams Family”.

Because she suffers from a severe immune disorder, teenager Izzy (Zelda Adams) lives in isolation with her Mother (Toby Poser). However, when she gets to know another teen named Amber (Lulu Adams), Izzy starts to question the reality of her situation.

After she eats a worm, Izzy develops a hunger for live critters. She discovers special powers she didn’t know she possessed and needs to process these revelations.

My only prior experience with the work of “the Adams Family” came from 2019’s The Deeper You Dig. While I liked the way in which that flick differed from mainstream horror, I thought the end result lacked much drama or intrigue.

Nonetheless, I felt Deeper showed enough potential to lead me to hope Hellbender would improve on it. Alas, this doesn’t become the case.

To be sure, I can see talent in the Adams Family, a group whose name literally represents its members. Outside of a few supporting actors and some visual effects artists, mom Toby Poser, dad John Adams and daughters Zelda and Lulu Adams literally did all the tasks required to create Hellbender.

And they manage a good-looking film on what one assumes must be a tiny budget. The Adams’ create a movie that looks more expensive than it presumably was and the photography turns into a strength.

Unfortunately, the cinematography becomes pretty much the only clear positive I can locate from Hellbender. Everything else comes across like the glorified home movie it is.

This means a script I view as problematic at best and a story that seems cribbed from elsewhere. Hellbender tends to feel like a combination of Carrie with a vampire tale.

Actually, that doesn’t seem like the worst idea on paper, but the Adams’ can’t realize the concept as anything interesting. This manifests as a movie that meanders and stretches to fill its brief 83-minute running time.

Hoo boy, does Hellbender wander – literally at times, as we get an awful lot of shots of as they simply walk through the woods. This can seem like padding and I often get the impression Hellbender started life as a short the Adams’ decided to expand to feature length.

As such, we find a story that simply lacks the substance to sustain its 83 minutes. The movie plods and doesn’t build in a meaningful manner.

Perhaps if Hellbender came with a good finale, it could redeem itself. Instead, the narrative gets sillier as it goes and concludes with a whimper.

Given its “glorified home movie” status, Hellbender tends to feel fairly amateurish. Outside of the photography, nothing here seems like professionals made it, as the performances and writing and editing and music all seem like they came from amateurs – moderately talented amateurs, but still people without a real grasp of the different domains involved.

Because it exists as a micro-budget indie film, I kind of hate to come down too hard on Hellbender. It certainly offers a movie better than what 99 percent of families could make.

But Arrow doesn’t offer a discount on this Blu-ray because the film itself was cheap to shoot or the filmmakers lack polish. If people are expected to pay full price for a movie, they deserve a well-made product, and unfortunately, the clumsy and amateurish Hellbender doesn’t fit that bill.

Hellbender appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This became a solid presentation.

Sharpness worked well. A smidgen of softness impacted some darker interiors, but the majority of the flick boasted appealing accuracy.

No issues with moiré effects or jagged edges emerged. Edge haloes stayed absent, and I saw no source defects.

Colors went for a chilly blue most of the time, and they looked fine within those choices. Though the hues lacked much vivacity, they achieved their goals.

Blacks were deep and dense, while shadows appeared smooth. Expect a positive presentation.

Like its 2019 predecessor The Deeper You Dig, Hellbender comes with an LPCM Stereo soundtrack, a fact that remains dated. A circa 2021 movie without a multichannel mix seems quaint, to say the least.

That said, I know Hellbender enjoyed a small budget, and I probably prefer that the filmmakers went “small” with the audio. Better to keep things two-channel rather than attempt a bad 5.1 mix.

All of this means one should expect a decidedly unambitious soundtrack from Hellbender. At least it broadened matters more than the prior flick, however.

This meant the sides offered general ambience when appropriate. Music also spread moderately to the left and right channels.

Still, the soundfield really did remain restrained, and the center speaker dominated. Though not quite monaural, the mix didn’t show a lot of zing.

At least quality seemed fine. Speech felt natural and concise, without edginess or other issues.

Given that Hellbender brought a subdued movie, effects lacked much to do, but they felt accurately reproduced. Music also seemed acceptably full.

Ultimately, I thought this was a passable track and no more, partly because it’s so primitive compared to what we expect from movies circa 2021. Nonetheless, it worked fine within its restrained goals.

As we shift to extras, we open with an audio commentary from filmmakers Toby Poser, John Adams, Zelda Adams and Lulu Adams. All four sit together for a running, screen-specific discussion of characters and performances, locations, music, photography, and various production thoughts.

The track for The Deeper You Dig featured just Poser and John Adams. The addition of their daughters alters the dynamic.

This means the Hellbender chat seems looser and closer to stream of consciousness. On the positive side, the track comes with a lot of energy.

However, the commentary tends to seem too giddy and it often feels more like a family party than a discussion of the movie. Though we occasionally get some decent info about the film’s creation, too much of the time, we just get laughing and trivia.

A “video essay” called From the Forest She Rises comes next. It runs 12 minutes, 37 seconds and offers info from filmmaker Jennifer Handorf.

During this piece, Handorf discusses Hellbender’s antecedents as well as themes and interpretation. I think she infers more depth than the film actually delivers, but Handorf nonetheless delivers some intriguing thoughts.

Black Magic Tricks goes for 10 minutes, 13 seconds. It involves VFX artist Trey Lindsay.

He talks about working with the Adams Family as well as the effects of the film. Lindsay provides a good summary of these elements.

Next we move to of six minutes, 54 seconds of Behind the Scenes Footage. We get a pretty good “fly on the wall” perspective for a few parts of the shoot.

Called Fort Worden, we find a short film made by Zelda Adams during the shoot – and at a mere 58 seconds, it delivers a very short film. It feels more like an outtake from Hellbender than a standalone and it doesn’t go anywhere on its own.

In addition to trailers for The Deeper You Dig and Hellbender, we locate four music videos for the Adams Family band “H6LLB6ND6R”. I can’t say any of them do much for me, but they add some value to the set.

Although Hellbender offers some appealing visuals and a decent basic premise, the end product doesn’t work. It feels too formless and more like an elaborate home movie than a finished film. The Blu-ray boasts very good visuals, mediocre audio and a moderate array of bonus materials. Maybe someday the Adams Family will create a consistently good film, but Hellbender isn’t it.