HELL HOLE (2024)
New streaming on Shudder!
Directed by John Adams, Toby Poser.
Written by John Adams, Lulu Adams, Toby Poser.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/WRxBvUN3FDE

A fracking team from America head to Serbia and prepare to drill deep. But upon breaking the surface, they unearth something that defies modern science. Trapped at the site due to flooded roads, the stranded team must deal with a creature that enters the body of men in order to grow and survive.

The Adams Family has been known for their low fi and subtle horror, making HELL HOLE quite the departure from their previous works. Unlike the tender and tragic moments of HELLSEEKER or the heart wrenching scenes in THE DEEPER YOU DIG, or even the bizarre and dream-like spectacle of WHERE THE DEVIL ROAMS, HELL HOLE is a bawdy, in your face, horror comedy. And while this is definitely a horror comedy in the vein of EVIL DEAD 2, leaning more towards comedy, if you’re expecting the usual, quiet, subtle horror, HELL HOLE is definitely going to take you by surprise.

The dialog is comfortable and often quite witty. I liked the casual banter between Toby Poser’s character Emily, who acts like the den mother to this motley crew, and her real life partner Jon Adams, who plays John, the laid back GM of the crew. These scenes show that these two are capable of entertaining all on their own without a drop of blood spilt. There are quite a few scenes like the first one between Poser and Adams. There are also a lot of scenes where the Serbian workers converse back and forth, and the lack of humor in their tone, makes the banter all the more entertaining. All of them fun, but after the monster is revealed and the stakes are dire, this aloof banter feels less appropriate.

The gore, mostly made of practical effects with some CG tweaks here and there. And there’s a lot of it. Not only is the method the creature enters its host unsettling in the most uncomfortable sense, once the monster explodes out of the body of its host of anything life-threatening occurs. Then it scampers away and then enters the next poor soul to repeat the process again. The results are some gnarly body horror involving worms and tentacles. There’s definitely a John Carpenter’s THE THING vibe to the way the monster passes like a contagion and seeing the react to the monster inside of them is part of the fun.

There is an issue with the pacing of HELL HOLE. It’s one of those films that starts and stops with the action with a lot of jaw wagging in between. It makes the flow of the film feel off. Most films have cool down times after scenes of action and carnage, but because everyone is so calm with this monster picking them off one by one, it makes the film feel uneven.

Still Poser is great in the lead as she tries not to be the mother of the group, but ends up being the voice of calm and reason to these guys anyway. There are some heartfelt scenes at the end that felt more in the Adams Family wheelhouse. The squid/worm/parasite monster is a lot of fun as it scurries to and fro. The ending was a bit abrupt, but still made sense. And I laughed quite a bit at the subtle and not so subtle humor. Plus this is as gory as it gets, proving that the Adams family is not only talented but versatile—challenging themselves in new ways with every film. It’s a bit of a stray from their usual output, and that’s not going to sit well with some, but I had a lot of fun with it.

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Music Written by Tim Heidecker
Music & Arrangement by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy https://youtu.be/PDySbxQgZMg
(I do not own this music)