Living Hell

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.

The premise and support for much of the argument of the movie is decent unlike that of regular SciFi fare. Given that zombie, slasher etc type flicks are the films usually shown on SciFi, this movie deserves consideration simply on originality. Much of what was suggested wasn't too far fetched and more reasonable than the basis of most of the movies that get the usual 3 or 4 rating. The acting is still terrible and James McDaniel seems to be the only competent actor in this project. Still, if movies in this genre worth a 0 get a 3 or a 4 instead then this movie deserves at least a 6 and thats what I'm giving it.

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.

I insist on watching the movies on Sci-Fi because, well, I have to. I keep hoping someday there will be a hidden gem, or at least one with some cool special effects. This one was a little of both. While overgrown with B-movie clichés and iffy CGI effects, there were still some pretty interesting twists, and some genuinely creepy moments. I did get caught up in the race to defeat the -ah- monster (?), and I liked the acting of the two main characters, even if the dialog left them pretty thin. The story was a very nice diversion from the usual sort of humanoid-alien-or-zombie run wild. It was fun to watch. I thought the solution was maybe a little trite, but I enjoyed the film enough that I was OK with it. There were little glimpses of pretty intelligent writing sprinkled through the movie. It almost felt like a decent script that got stretched and produced and Sci-Fi-ized into a B-movie (C-movie?). But I think it still maintained some of the interesting parts of the premise, and played them out well. All in all, I enjoyed watching it, and it held my interest all the way to the end. I wonder why the Sci-Fi channel insists on matching cheesy special effects with cheesy acting and cheesy writing. Dr. Who is proof that good writing can carry really cheap effects. I think this movie was a big step in that direction, and I hope they go with it more.

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