‘Hell Hole’ Review
Stars: Tobey Poser, John Adams, Maximum Portman, Aleksandar Trmcic, Olivera Perunicic, Marko Filipovic | Written by Tobey Poser, John Adams, Lulu Adams | Directed by Tobey Poser, John Adams
Hell Hole begins in 1814, somewhere in Serbia, where a bunch of Napoleon’s troops are lost and starving. A local woman wordlessly appears and offers them a horse. Since they aren’t in a position to look a gift horse in the mouth, they accept, and get ready to have their first meal in ages. Unfortunately for them, the gift horse is actually a Trojan Horse carrying a parasitic creature that appears to spread by sodomizing a potential host.
In modern-day Serbia, a fracking operation run by Emily (Tobey Poser; What We Find on the Road, Miltown) and her foreman John (John Adams; Knuckle Jack, The Deeper You Dig) finds itself cut off when the only road connecting them to civilization floods. With nothing else to do the crew, which also includes Emily’s nephew Teddy (Maximum Portman; Sugar Off The Button, Hellholes) and a pair of local environmental officials Nikola (Aleksandar Trmcic; See You in Montevideo, Felix) and Sofija (Olivera Perunicic; Subspecies V: Bloodrise, The Ark), continue working.
They should have taken the day off instead. While digging a trench to bury garbage, they uncover one of the soldiers from the prologue, (Marko Filipovic; Subspecies V: Bloodrise) encased in a cocoon but still alive and still suffering from having a critter in his shitter. Of course, they bring him back to camp, but since none of them speak French, they can’t understand that he’s telling them to kill him.
Poser and Adams are, as you probably know, two members of the clan of filmmakers known as The Adams Family and, along with daughters Zelda and Lulu, have been making a name for themselves, most recently with Hellbender and Where the Devil Roams. Here they move away from the supernatural and into monster movie territory with a film that combines elements of The Thaw, 12 Kilometres, and The Thing.
Directed by Adams and Poser from a script they co-wrote with Lulu Adams, Hell Hole runs into problems almost as soon as the unfortunate soldier is dug up. The frackers have just uncovered a man who has been buried alive for who knows how long, and they’re distinctly blasé about it. Even after strange tentacles start making appearances from his nose and ears, they seem more curious than concerned.
Of course, the creature gets loose and starts making its way through the workers in the camp. Actually, it’s just the male ones, because for some reason, whether misogyny or biology, it doesn’t take female hosts. It’s an interesting idea, but nothing is really done with it. And, unfortunately, the same can be said of Hell Hole as a whole, where their previous films put their own spin on the material, this just feels like a generic monster movie.
The monster itself is a nasty, slimy creature designed by Todd Masters (The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia, It Lives Inside) and brought to life by Trey Lindsay (Eight Eyes, Black Eyed Susan) using stop-motion animation. The CGI used for some of Hell Hole’s more involved effects sequences ranges from excellent to obvious, which is pretty much par for the course.
But that’s really all Hell Hole has going for it. Despite the possibilities hinted at by the plot and setting, such as the frequent shots of a huge, crumbling Soviet style building that looms over the camp, the script is content to have everyone stand around mouthing bland dialogue and platitudes. And for many viewers that might be enough to kill an hour and a half, but for those who know what the filmmakers are capable of, something that feels like an old SyFy Original is a disappointment.
*** 3/5
Hell Hole is available to stream now on Shudder.
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