Movie Review: Hellbinders (2009) directed by Mitch Gould
It is the 14th Century, a wasteland in the general vicinity of Jerusalem. Two men are fighting, Cain the last of the Templar Knights, and a demonically-possessed person known as Legion. Legion gloats that even if their vessel is destroyed, it can simply possess another, but Cain points out that he’s made sure that there’s no lifeforms within range for Legion to jump to, and he’s immune to possession. Cain kills Legion, which solves that problem for a while.
But it turns out there were worms deep underground and Legion was able to transfer to those. It’s taken centuries, but at last Legion is back in human bodies, and has regrouped in 21st Century Los Angeles. (They like the irony of the “City of Angels” name.) They’ve become a sort of gang/cult under the nominal leadership of Samael (Richard Cetrone).
The police have tried dealing with the situation, but this has resulted in fifteen dead cops, and fifteen cops joining the gang. (Apparently most of Legion is terrible at pretending to be the people they’ve replaced, so they’re not actually infiltrating the police.) Two corrupt officers decide that this isn’t working, so they hire top hitman Max (Ray Park) to wipe out the Legion gang using an ancient manuscript the gang wants as bait.
The hit goes poorly. While Max is able to kill a bunch of Legion, this just results in his backup team getting possessed and turned against him, and Samael gets away with the Book of Solomon.
Meanwhile, members of the local Yakuza have also been possessed and turned against the parent organization in Japan. Assassin Ryu (Johnny Yong Bosch) has been dispatched to deal with this, but soon realizes that more is going on here than normal mob politics. This is especially obvious with Tetsuro (Dan Southworth) who’s been possessed by a particularly strong piece of Legion. He also makes contact with a Buddhist priest (Gerald Okamura) who’s able to tell him at least a little of what’s going on.
The now ageless Cain (Esteban Cueto) is tipped off to Legion’s resurgence to rival demon Beelzebub (Steve Fite). He confronts Samael, who points out there are four million people in Los Angeles for Legion to jump into–even Cain can’t kill that many theoretically innocent people by himself.
The three men find themselves forced together by the fact that each of them is immune to possession by Legion and therefore they’re the only ones they can trust. Cain is protected by the heretical dark magic that also makes him undying (the Templars never made deals with the Fallen Ones, but did learn from them), Ryu has mental disciplines passed down from his warrior-priest lineage (who’ve fallen in the world to mere ninja-type assassins) and Max literally has no soul to possess, normally a bad thing.
Will even these three be enough to stop Legion from opening a portal that will turn the City of Angels into Hell-A?
This low budget direct to video supernatural action flick is much better than that combination of words would normally have you think. While not directly based on a comic book, it’s very comic-booky in a good way, right down to having transitions framed as comic book panels. Each of the protagonists has their own director for scenes focusing on them, but the directors (mostly known for stunt direction) coordinate well enough that this isn’t jarring.
The three leads are decent enough actors for their roles, and they’re given slightly more depth in their characters than is normal for this subgenre. Plus the stunts and fights are varied and interesting. (There’s a fight scene between two former Power Rangers for you trivia buffs.) There’s no shoved-in romantic subplot (though you might think so from an early scene.)
The nature of Legion’s powers make them an interesting threat that needs some thought to deal with. While there’s plenty of sequel hooks, no sequel was forthcoming, so you don’t have to think about how that would work unless you’re writing fanfic.
The one big misstep in the movie is a special effects sequence near the end that really demonstrates the limit of the budget.
Content note: Lots of violence, usually lethal, with one particularly gory moment. Casual homophobia, some rough language. A character is shown post-torture. While some scenes take place in an opium den, I don’t think we ever see opium being used.
This is fun middlebrow entertainment, with just enough extra fiber to engage some brain cells. Recommended to action fans.
