Living Hell

Despite a good idea, I was not expecting much in all honesty from Living Hell considering it was from the notorious- in a negative way- Sci-Fi Channel. But it is one of their more tolerable movies, maybe not living up to making what happens truly hellish but it similarly doesn't live up in terms of horribleness either. It is far from perfect, the special effects/make-up looked often as if they were unfinished, the ending is really trite and a bit of a cop-out and the whole vines thing being linked to the military base was a stale plot point that could've been expanded upon to make it stick. On top of that, the characters- aside from the overly-obvious clichés- are nowhere near developed enough to be likable and with two exceptions the acting is pretty dire, Erica Leehrsen is beautiful but lacks charisma and needs more maturity in her acting. The two exceptions are Johnathan Schaech, who has some questionable lines sometimes but he is a likable and believable actor all the same, and James McDaniel, for the same reasons. Along with their performances, there are good things. For the Sci-Fi Channel, it doesn't look too bad. The scenery is nice to look at and doesn't look like someone's basements, and the editing has more clarity than you would expect. The music is a rise above the generic and over-bearing stuff I often here, while the script, even with some dialogue that doesn't always ring true, does have some intelligent touches and the story while not particularly original in terms of the telling of it(the borrowing from older movies) and the science as ever is enough to raise an eyebrow is never dull and actually has some suspenseful atmosphere. It also deserves credit for being a departure from the zombie and vampire movies I've seen a lot of(and considering the overall quality starting to get tired actually). The killings are decent as well, and some of the gore is enough to make the stomach churn without it being too overdone. So overall, tolerable Sci-Fi movie if not as terrifying(in what's going on) or as horrible(overall execution of movie) as you'd think. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Oh yes, you've heard it right. Living Hell (or here incorrectly listed as Organizm) is a sci-fi channel movie that actually doesn't suck! Sure, while not the greatest monster movie ever, I still actually had a fun time with this despite its many clichés and plot holes. But hey, I wasn't looking for an Oscar movie. The story is set around a male teacher (Schaech) who breaks into a base to warn the civils not to demolish a New Mexico base, but they don't listen to him and head to the sub levels where they accidentally set a deadly organizm free. Most of the civils get murdered, the creature escapes, and one of the survivors (the beautiful Leerhsen girl from the 'Chainsaw redux) teams with the teacher to stop the organizm before it kills everything in its path. I enjoyed this predictable little movie mostly because the screenwriters knew they weren't making the most original movie, so they just went with it. There are a lot of scenes similar to other horror films (Alien among others), but the good acting and effective directing with many original camera angles makes it up for the very predictable and dull plot. Moreover, the monster is also pretty fake looking and not scary, but after all this was a sci-fi movie, so that didn't bother me. Like I said, it's not the greatest horror film ever, but I was entertained and that's the biggest reason why I'd recommend it. If you're ready to avoid clichés and some fake scenes, you'll enjoy this. Thumbs surprisingly up.

No offense to stumpmee77, but to give this movie a "glowing, glowing report" is like calling McDonalds a whole foods supermarket. "Living Hell" is not only the title of the movie, but the experience one has while watching it. I won't go into detail (it's too painful). The general plot follows the sci-fi model of government experiment gone horribly wrong. Perhaps fans of this movie who believe it to be unique and exciting have never seen a sci-fi original in their lives, and to them I suggest sitting down in front of their televisions this Saturday and watching the newest film. We have the troubled protagonist, who's insane mother carved some plot device into his hand (it turns out he has a pretty messed up family - his dad's a government experiment). There's the saucy military-associated female cohort of his; this movie would not be a sci-fi movie unless the two of them hooked up. But they do more than just "hook up," why, the protagonist rubs his blood all over her in a scene that is equal parts confusing and disgusting. Really, there are so many factual inaccuracies in this movie I am left flabbergasted. Scientifically, this would be like if a movie decided to save California from separating from the rest of America due to plate tectonics it would be necessary to detonate nuclear bombs into the city. Oh, wait, sci-fi aired a movie that did just that. This movie is almost as absurd as a movie that would blow up the Loch Ness Monster in Michigan. Oh, yeah, sci-fi nailed that sucker too. But I digress. If one needs proof to realize this movie is not-so-good, I would direct them to the scene in which, for no reason, a minor female character rips off her shirt. The only "fear factor" present in this movie was the fear of my IQ dropping while watching. I suggest this movie for anyone who likes to laugh.

The movie begins well with an interesting if not original take on the outbreak/monster escapes genre. However it doesn't remain any good for any length of time. The story premise is not bad, but the plot is terrible, the script is abysmal, most of the acting is dreadful, Erica Leerhsen is okay but how John Schaech's completely wooden and cheesy acting ever gets him work is beyond me. The physical effects are okay but the cgi is totally below par.

The premise: a boy is branded on his hands by his mother just before she kills herself and her husband. The boy never forgets level whatever it was and vault 12 because it's on his hands!! Cue years later and the army base which the message relates to is being decommissioned and the boy now a man remembers his mother's warning "don not disturb vault 12" so he drives into the base to warn em all.

Fans of intelligent sci-fi will despair. Brits (we're an intelligent bunch) don't even bother unless you want ninety minutes of shouting at the screen at the stupidity of it. But if that's your bag then go ahead, it's probably worth watching just for this gratuitous soft core 'cover me in blood' scene, like Arnie covered himself in mud in predator- it's so cringeworthingly bad they all deserve an award.

Or you could just skip to that scene and save yourself all the trouble - roughly 1hr 10 mins in.

This is easily one of the better SciFi channel offerings. Competently acted, directed and written it was enjoyable and well worth watching. The only sub-standard aspect was some of the computer generated effects (blood spatter, fire) were distractingly unrealistic. The storyline certainly borrowed from other movies, but there were enough novel touches to keep it interesting. The pace drags a little toward the end, but it is head and shoulders above much of the dreck they have put out over the years.

I hope this signals a commitment on the part of the SciFi channel to improve their offerings. How the same channel can produce superb fare like "The Lost Room" also produces crapfests like "Path of Destruction" baffles me.