Hell Hole

I'd only seen one other film from these creators before (that being Hellbender), which struck me as an attempt at a folk horror / coming of age story with nice cinematography but not much substance. Hell Hole continues the tradition with terrible generic dialogue, but at least it was quite entertaining in its campiness, making up for the equal lack of depth and characterization with over-the-top gore and patently silly interactions. It reminded me a bit of the Resident Evil game series (in more ways than one), which got good once it started leaning into its more ridiculous aspects and trying to have some tongue-in-cheek fun with them.

Hell Hole's too repetitive to watch more than once, but for a one-time-thing, the practical effects, cool setting (Here's to post-Soviet industrial decay!) and comedic elements (which I'll charitably hope were intentional) make it worth seeing at least once, even if it's just when you come home from the bar and feel like watching something disposable.

The entire film takes place on Mount Rtanj, in an abandoned mine building with the same name. The history of this mine is very rich, and I suggest that viewers of the film explore it.

The story is thin. The acting is terrible. The dialogues are tragic. Literally, nothing in this film is good, but I still had a lot of fun. The plot is as transparent as gauze, and not only has it been seen a thousand times, but it's also been executed perfectly in at least a hundred other films. In this film, as a native Serb, I find a comedic aspect that someone who isn't from Serbia probably wouldn't notice.

The constant mixing of Serbian with English is very well thought out and adds an interesting element to the film.

The characters from Serbia are portrayed very accurately. Their knowledge of English is very poor, they are stupid and uneducated (and all of them are armed - which might be a bit exaggerated). In the film, the use of Slovenian and Macedonian languages can be noticed in fragments. The final scene is interesting and presents a view of Slovenian daily newspapers. By the way, I hope the sequel to this film is never made!

All in all, I think this film should be avoided entirely, and I only enjoyed it because my native language is used in a rather humorous way.

This movie could have been cult status if it would have taken itself more seriously. It puts you In the vein of The Thing, Hidden, Alien,, and so many other Scifi cult classics. The special effects was excellent, everything we want and need in these Science fiction movies. The acting was somewhat ok, the storyline was cliche but the protagonist creature was original. A fracking crew working deep in the Serbian wilderness uncovers a parasitic creature. This movie is from the filmmaking family behind Hellbender. The creature needs a human/body to host. Toby Poser and her husband John Adams true to the horror genre.

This has some good elements but it ultimately disappoints. The good elements include a fairly novel monster that's well-utilized; some gory, gross and darkly funny splatter effects; and reasonably good performances. But they're ultimately outweighed by the bad elements: a rather lackluster premise that's like a throwaway X-Files episode; unlikeable characters; and a tepid ending that sputters to a lackluster conclusion. Worst of all is repetitive and redundant expositional dialogue. The characters talk and talk about everything that's happening and they over-explain the nature of the monster, its lifecycle and biology.

I found the cover for this movie interesting enough to make me stop up and take notice. And with "Hell Hole" being a horror movie that I had neither heard about, much less actually seen before, of course I would sit down and give the movie a fair chance. I am a huge fan of the horror genre after all.

The storyline in "Hell Hole" was pretty straight forward, and it sort of semi-entertaining. However, writers John Adams, Lulu Adams and Toby Poser didn't exactly revolutionize the horror genre with this 2024 movie. If you are a diehard horror fan, then you might get a small kick out of this movie, just keep in mine that you're not in for anything grand. I have to say that the narrative is slow paced and there isn't really a whole lot going on to drive the movie forward, which means parts of the movie are rather sluggish and difficult to sit through.

The only familiar face on the cast list, for me at least, was actor Anders Hove. He was only in the movie for a short time, but it was still a nice thing to have a horror icon such as Anders Hove showing up in a movie such as this. The acting performances in "Hell Hole" were fair.

There was some pretty fun and enjoyable gore in the movie, especially when people were blowing up when the alien parasitic creature would burst out of the host bodies. That was actually quite fun to watch.

When you have a movie that is starring, written and directed by the same two people, you just know it is not going to be a stellar viewing experience.

My rating of directors John Adams and Toby Poser's 2024 movie "Hell Hole" lands on a three out of ten stars, with the gore actually dragging the movie up from an otherwise two out of ten stars rating.