Hellbent played the gay and lesbian film festival circuit throughout 2004 and 2005 before a limited theatrical release on September 16, 2005.

The night before Halloween, a gay couple are making out in a car when a bare-chested killer in a devil mask appears and decapitates them with a sickle.

Tobey, drunk and angry that no one is hitting on him while he is in his Halloween drag, spots the killer, who is still carrying Joey and Chaz's heads in trick or treat bags.

Eddie slips a hand out of the cuffs, tends to Jake's wound, and heads off to call an ambulance, but the killer wakes and disables the phone.

Instead, I opted to give each of the characters a specific fatal flaw that my killer exploits: use of sense-deadening recreational drugs, addiction to attention, flight-instinct overwhelmed by romantic bliss.

About 2000, executive producers Michael Roth (Circuit), Joseph Wolf (Fade to Black, Hell Night, Halloween II, Halloween III: Season of the Witch), and Karen Lee Wolf (Children of the Living Dead) conceived the idea of a serial killer horror film featuring homosexual characters.

After reading a portion of a romantic comedy script Etheredge-Ouzts had written, the producers asked him to write and direct their gay-themed horror film.

This approach led Etheredge-Ouzts to cut the killer's lines from the film, as he worried that a portion of the audience would not find whichever voice was used to be frightening.

The article mentioned queercore band Nick Name and the Normals, and Etheredge-Ouzts contacted Name to see if he would be interested in writing music for the film.

Only later did Etheredge-Ouzts discover that Texas Terri was a punk rock musician and singer, after which he asked her to contribute to the soundtrack as well.

[3] Live filming occurred on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood,[3] and a wooded location in Los Angeles was used as the scene of the first crime.

Several scenes were filmed in Los Angeles buildings (including a local church used as 'The Meatlocker'[1]) redressed to look like carnival venues.

Etheredge-Ouzts sought a racially diverse cast of handsome men who were "regular guys" who didn't "play gay".

However, only a small number of racial and ethnic minority actors auditioned for the film, and none of them had the requisite acting skills.

[5] Etheredge-Ouzts was dismayed to discover that most of the suggestions were very poor; many were sexually inappropriate, some far too campy, and others too topical (which meant they would not stand the test of time).

Etheredge-Ouzts chose Hellbent for the title because it was aggressive and simple, as well as a play on words (referring both to the devil-masked killer and the "bent" [e.g., gay] victims).

[3] Hellbent features original as well as licensed songs by queercore bands Nick Name and the Normals, Best Revenge, Pansy Division, and Three Dollar Bill.

However, this is not an accurate claim, as the gay slasher films Make a Wish (2002), Dead Guys (2003), and High Tension (2003) all preceded it.

The site's consensus reads: "Hellbent is proof that gay slasher films can be just as tedious and mediocre as straight ones".

[15] Dennis Harvey, writing in Variety, called it a "straight-ahead slasher pic" that was "fun—if minor horror fun—[and] ably handled by first-time feature helmer Paul Etheredge-Ouzts.

[17] Writing for IndieWire, critic Michael Koresky found the film lacking in nuance, "more efficient than innovative", and even somewhat stale, yet said it was pleasurable and gleeful and managed to catch the audience's attention.

[18] Peter Hartlaub was more critical of the film in his review, concluding that Hellbent was not smart, not scary, and numbingly predictable.

[19] Although critic Dennis Harvey found the script full of plot holes, they were no more so than in the average slasher film.

He criticized the main character of Eddie as bland, but had good words for Andrew Levitas' performance as the hedonistic Chaz.

[7] Laura Kern found the dialogue corny, but had very positive words for the way each character was brought to life (which, she felt, made it all the more difficult to watch each person die).

[8] Critic Michael Koresky, however, was more equivocal, calling this element of the film both its greatest strength and its most nagging weakness.

[21] By rejecting certain LGBT stereotypes (like the "flaming queen"), the motion picture limits "how gay" is acceptable, undercutting its claim to be "queer" (e.g., radical and non-normative) and reinforcing heteronormative ideas about masculinity.

The sexually active friends all die, and Eddie (whose sole attempt to have sex in the film is interrupted before it begins) survives.

[24] Reviewer Jeff Shannon disagreed, arguing that the flair and humor with which the killings occur avoided the "sex-equals-death" trope of most horror films.

[16] Michael Koresky described Joey's death scene in the red-drenched bathroom very effectively staged,[18] although Peter Hartlaub found that the lighting obscured the action rather than enhancing it.