Crew
Director – John Geddes, Screenplay – Tony Burgess, Producers – Jesse Thomas Cook, John Geddes & Matt Wiele, Photography (b&w + colour) – Jeffrey Mahar, Music – Jeff Graville, Visual Effects Supervisor – Nick Flock, Visual Effects – Exile Effects (Supervisor – Mack Benz & Francois Latremoille) & Flook Effects, Makeup Effects – The Brothers Gore (Jason Derushie & Jeff Derushie), Production Design – Jason Brown, Conceptual Design – Michele Assarasakorn. Production Company – Foresight Features.
Cast
Stephen McHattie (Charlie Baker/The Barda), Siobhan Murphy (Fay Harrington), Mark Gibson (Sheriff Cliff Ryan), Ari Millen (Harry), Tony Burgess (Tips), Boyd Banks (Fred Whinny), Bruce McDonald (Paul Kemp), Julian Richings (Freddy T. Neville), Adam Seybold (Mr. Praut), Kate Fenton (Mrs. Praut), Jason Brown (The Bargeman)
Plot
Cemetery keeper Charlie Baker is close to retirement where he plans to go to Florida to spend his last days. He is then visited by his boss Fred Whinny who pressures Charlie into taking another short-term job. Charlie says that he is too ill but is forced to agree with the promise of triple his pension or else its cancellation. He to take over management of the remote Forks of Heaven cemetery. On the way there, he comes across Fay walking and gives her a ride. The two later become lovers. The cemetery is a foreboding place that is in danger of complete collapse if Charlie does not always keep a box he was given with him. At the same time, two escaped convicts from the local prison seek refuge in the cemetery. Sheriff Ryan comes looking for them and tells Charlie the history of the cemetery. However, the others succeed in opening the gates to the afterlife within the grounds of the cemetery, unleashing monstrosities from beyond.
Canadian director John Geddes first appeared as co-director of Scare Me (2008) and then solo directed the quite impressive Civil War zombie film Exit Humanity (2011). Hellmouth was his second solo film and he subsequently went on to make Creep Nation (2019). He has also produced Monster Brawl (2011), Septic Man (2013), Ejecta (2014), The Hexecutioners (2015), Deadsight (2018) and The Hoard (2018).
I enjoyed Exit Humanity and so entered into Hellmouth as an unknown. It wasn’t too far in before I was quite blown away by the visual uniqueness that Geddes displays. The film has been shot in a highly stylised black-and-white visual scheme where occasional element in the frame – the dawn light, Siobhan Murphy’s scarlet red lipstick, the taillights of Stephen McHattie’s car – are tinted in colour. The nearest equivalent you might find would be the similarly highly stylised world that takes place in Sin City (2005).
It is as though everything around Stephen McHattie from the initial graveyard to his journey across the landscape is transformed into a different world of Lovecraftian neo-noir – indeed, Hellmouth seems to almost slip over into actual Film Noir at points, most notedly when it comes to the portrayal of Siobhan Murphy as the genre’s standard femme fatale. It is an amazing use of digital backlot where almost the entire exterior world outside has been created and inserted digitally. It is unique and quite unlike anything one has seen in a film before. This is at its most sublime and amazingly fantastical during the journeys through the Forks of Heaven cemetery filled with gravestones and statues depicting twisted, half-human shapes, demon figures and tortured and impaled bodies.
The downside of Hellmouth is that there is not nearly enough explanation about what is going on. We never, for instance, see the titular Hellmouth. Does Stephen McHattie journey into Hell or the Afterlife at the end? It is not clear. Who is the figure he meets there (also played by McHattie) – The Devil? What are the other demonic entities we see around the graveyard and even possessing the sheriff at one point?
Trailer here