It’s festival season and no festival is quite the same without a new film from Team Adams. The minds who brought us Hellbender, The Deeper You Dig and Where the Devil Roams are back with something new, slimy, and a ton of fun. Having enjoyed their last few outings, I was excited to see what Hell Hole would bring. There is something unique about the Adams’ brand of low-budget filmmaking in that audiences have learned to expect the unexpected. And that continues to be the case here. Hell Hole has all of the things we have come to enjoy from this team of filmmakers - a solid story, creative filmmaking, a kick-ass soundtrack, and DIY filmmaking at its finest. But it also sees the creatives breaking new ground and trying something new.
This time around, John Adams and Toby Poser share directing duties, and co-wrote the script with Lulu Adams. Set in Serbia, Hell Hole follows a small fracking team in a remote area of the countryside. A pair of environmental consultants have just signed off on the project, confirming that no endangered wildlife will be harmed by the drilling, and the team goes to work. After just a few moments, a powerful stench starts to emanate from the ground. After a few minutes more, they find the source. Their dig has uncovered a strange and bewildered man, wearing a 19th century French soldier's uniform. covered in some sort of funky membrane. Somehow, despite being buried in the Earth, he is still very much alive.
The team, led by John (John Adams) and Emily (Toby Poser) are frankly, at a loss. How could a man survive in the ground like that? What was he doing there? And what are they supposed to do now? As they confer with one another, consult the scientists, and try to get a handle on the situation, it becomes apparent that the French guy is not the end of the strange and confusing phenomena that they will face today. Because the French guy is not the only thing they pulled out of the earth. He is carrying something inside of him. A creature that the world has never seen (and frankly, is not close to being ready for).
As they try to figure out what exactly they are dealing with, circumstances lead to the creature jumping out of the soldier and into John. This is where the fun really begins. Any good underground parasite needs to have tentacles, and any good body horror movie needs to show those tentacles either going in or poking out of a human host. And these tentacles creep through ALL the holes. Soon, it is working its way through the team, one by one, and the group has a limited amount of time to figure out just how it functions and what they can do to stop it.
This film is a lot of fun. Tonally, it’s a bit different from the team’s previous works in that more of the humor is front and center. It’s filled with jokes, one-liners and tons of WTF moments (like any good monster movie should have). Though not a straight comedy, it has a bit of a lighter vibe than we are used to seeing, and it’s great to see the writing and the actors stretch a bit in that direction. Adams and Poser are awesome, as are their supporting cast of Serbian actors, who deliver dialogue off and on in both English and Serbian. They sell the story, bask in the humorous moments, and really step up when they need to bring the uncertainty and the fear of the situation to life.
Interestingly, as the creature migrates from person to person, each actor incorporates the entity into their performance a little differently. Sometimes, it feels like the character is totally in control, and other times, it feels like the creature and the human mind are fighting for control of the person’s body. As if both entities are in there and are conscious simultaneously. It makes for an interesting dynamic on screen. With every new host, we get a slightly different take and a bit more information about the nature of this creature.
Speaking of the monster, the creature effects from Todd Masters are stellar. We get a creepy tentacle puppet! With a huge eyeball! The effects work compliments the tone of the film nicely - it’s bloody, slimy, and just a teeny bit absurd. There are moments that are really unsettling and others that feel like The Thing filtered through a Gwar video. It’s an ambitious undertaking, but it absolutely works.
As bonkers as the film is, it also raises some interesting questions along the way. Themes of bodily autonomy, how we as humans should approach and consider the importance of a newly-discovered species, and ultimately, where we lie in the grand scheme of Mother Nature are present throughout. They don’t make up the bulk of the narrative and the story doesn’t dwell on them, but they do offer up interesting points of consideration between bouts of bloody body-swapping.
It’s always exciting to see what this team will do next, and it’s even more exciting when they step into something totally new. Hell Hole is a bit of a departure from their prior works, and it’s exciting to see them taking changes and continuing to challenge themselves with new stories and subgenres. Hell Hole is a metal monster flick that will have crowds squirming, laughing, and cheering in equal measure.
Movie Score: 5/5
Emily von Seele hails from Seattle, where it rains a lot, which gives her plenty of excuses to stay inside and watch movies. She has written for Bloody Disgusting, Daily Dead, the Women in Horror Annual and Grim Magazine, and is co-host of the Dead Ringers podcast. You can usually catch Emily on Twitter (@horrorellablog), where she has been known to gab excessively about movies and tweet adorable pics of her two cats - seriously, they are the cutest ever.
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