Hell Hole hails from the filmmaking family behind Hellbender and centres on an American-led fracking crew that uncovers a living French soldier frozen in time from a Napoleonic campaign, whose body hosts a parasitic monster.
The film is a passion project from the Adamses (No, not that one); a self-taught indie film-making family of some renown. The film features no-nonsense John, played by co-writer-director John Adams; girl boss Emily, played by co-writer-director Toby Poser; thoughtful Teddy, played by Maxim Portman; and sweet Sofija, played by Olivera Perunicic.
If you are a fan of the page, you would know my bias towards creature features. That probably made me like the film more than I should have, as the opening scene is very slapstick and packed with awful effects. Hell Hole improves from there though, becoming far more watchable as we meet the main cast of frackers on their Serbian frack site. Here we deal with what is mostly the plot of a fast-paced The Thing (1982) but if The Thing was from Wish.
I did chuckle at a few of the ass-to-mouth references and other dirty jokes. The film is incredibly light-hearted and goes out of its way to scientifically explain the plausibility of this creature and then have it almost telepathically explode people. The cast is—for the most part—watchable and almost endearing. The tropes come hard and fast but that is to be expected.
Hell Hole is a schlocky B-horror monster film that is what I would call passable. It’s a lot of fun and probably something that I should have sparked up for. The energy of the film definitely gives off stoner vibes. Would I recommend it? Probably only to my herbaceous friends.
More comical and chaotic than it is creepy, you can definitely expect more laughs than you can scares. There is some body horror though it’s mostly done with janky SFX so it’s not all that terrifying. Also, there are more than a couple of orifice tentacles that check off every opening imaginable so if you are into that, great. There is a tonne of gore though. Viscera and giblets for miles around. If you like watching people explode, Hell Hole is definitely your cup of tea. I came for the creature but stayed for the silly.
Thanks for reading and as always, stay sordid. Hell Hole premieres tomorrow on AMC+ and Shudder. I have included the trailer and artwork below.
