Hell Hole

As a big fan of creature features, I was excited to check out Hell Hole. While the movie still had some fun moments, it was mostly a disappointment. The biggest issue with the film concerns the amount of dialogue that neither advances the plot nor meaningfully develops the character. The movie's plot is very basic, so there wasn't much to develop. Similarly, almost all of the characters are underdeveloped. These dialogue scenes feel as though they stretch on for forever because the action scenes are either very brief or poorly executed. So the movie often seems as though it's 90+ minutes of redshirts chatting with only brief breaks for action. Another big issue concerns the ending as I felt like it was wrapped up way too quickly with the fates of a few characters not fully understood. Ultimately, Hell Hole is a movie that falls well short of its relatively high potential.

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.

Overall I found this to be an entertaining experience, despite some flaws. This was a fun sci-fi creature feature that enjoyably didn't take itself too seriously while retaining some creep factor and intrigue.

The Adams family are always enjoyable to watch, despite some stiff and stilted dialogue at times throughout the film. Some of the CGI and practical effects were more successful than others but I enjoyed and appreciated the concept and intention behind all of it. The acting was decent from most of the cast, with a particularly solid performance from the actor playing Danko.

I wish we could've gotten a little bit more as far as plot goes. I feel like we lightly touched on a lot of different storylines, but nothing was really delved into. Regardless, this is enjoyable for what it is... a fun cat and mouse monster flick with some cool visuals and a lighthearted vibe. 5.5 rounding up to a 6, would recommend.

I am a fan of Adams family. I have watched both "The Deeper You Dig" and "Hellbender". Good movies, especially Hellbender, by those talented artists who obviously love a lot the horror genre, and they try to leave their mark on it. I respect their effort, with the means they have at their disposal. These are not groundbreaking movies though, neither great ones. Their movies are not scary neither much intense. For example, HELLBENDER is something like a "Coming of age/indie/art horror". It's easy to make a garbage movie like every other horror movie nowadays, with masked killers or demons killing everyone, but this is just a copy of a copy of a copy. Adams' movies have identity and their movies are kinda unique.

That doesn't mean they're very good. And "Hell hole" is my least favorite movie of them. Of course it's not scary as expected but at the same time, it's not much intense neither interesting. Keep in mind though, this is more comedy than horror. At least, i saw it that way. And when i understood what this is about, i had a lot of fun, there were even some hilarious scenes during the last 20 minutes.

So, it's important to lower your expectations and undestand what this is about. If you expect something as i described it, you will find this movie entertaining as well.

In any case, this is definitely not a MUST WATCH movie and i expect something better in the future. HELL HOLE is not a failure imo but neither a step forward by those film makers.

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.