Hell Hole

Hell Hole is yet another classic example of a decent concept for a horror movie bogged down by bad writing, lackluster acting, lazy production design, and crappy visual effects.

Clearly, this is supposed to be a monster movie primarily, but it has so much needless, boring, and repetitive dialogue that ultimately moves the plot nowhere and gives the characters no real depth at all.

This could've been really good if it were actually exciting and not so dull. It's also worth mentioning that it's basically a cheap knockoff of The Thing or other movies of that ilk, which makes it even less impressive when you look at the bigger picture.

I wish I could've gotten into it, but I just couldn't care enough about the story of the characters to really be invested for more than five minutes at a time.

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.

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.

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.

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.