The story follows a mother-daughter metal band living in an isolated woodland home, whose relationship is challenged when the daughter encounters other teenagers.

Izzy and her mother (who is never named) live a quiet, remote existence in the woods, spending most of their time creating metal music.

They eat a strictly vegan, foraged diet, and Izzy is home-schooled and forbidden to have any contact with others, her mother telling her that she has an autoimmune disease.

After a chance meeting with a teenaged neighbor, Izzy is invited to a party where she consumes a worm on a dare, and begins to hallucinate.

[1] Inspired by the musical project H6LLB6ND6R they had formed two years earlier, the family devised a film exploring parenting, witchcraft and matriarchy.

The website's consensus reads: "Hellbender stirs a boiling cauldron of adolescent angst, serving up a coming-of-age story with dark horror overtones.