Hell

Tim Fehlbaum's Hell depicts planet Earth as a barren, desolate wasteland that was once infested with blooming life. The cinematography of the dry, insufferable heat is so containing and properly handled that it almost bathes the viewer in hot flashes to the point where I was totally willing to step outside with no coat in the middle of Chicago cold. In terms of look, feel, and liveliness, it's a seriously effective thriller. As a film adding to the recent popular but rarely impressive genre of post-apocalyptic thrillers, it's more or less the same thing we've grown accustomed to.

Hell (also ridiculously titled Apocalypse in some retail chains) has one major selling point and that's its producer, the iconic German filmmaker Roland Emmerich, who has made a name for himself in the field of disaster films such as the American adaptation of the Japanese Godzilla series and Independence Day. Perhaps his producer's credit was earned in the fact that he saw a bit of his most recent film (at the time), 2012 in Hell. Unlike his picture which hammed up the nonsensical action and took almost nothing seriously in a long, winded two and a half hour film, Hell capitalizes on character relations and subtlety rather than tossing special effects at the viewer in an apparent contest.

We are placed in 2016, and learn immediately that the Earth has warmed at unprecedented rates, increasing 10°C because of solar flares destroying the atmosphere of Earth. The few survivors must shield their skin with excess clothing, gloves, smocks, and anything they can potentially protect themselves with from the increasing heat of the sun. We soon meet Marie (Hannah Herzsprung) a young woman traveling the ruins of parched roads with her boyfriend and younger sister. After picking up a man who claims that he can help them, (right after almost killing all three of them for their diminishing water supply) the three make an unplanned stop leaving the sister left in the car, which has its windows covered with newspaper and barricaded off. She is taken by a group of survivors who thrive on cannibalism in this newfound hellish world, and after her boyfriend splits, Marie and the hitchhiker attempt to recover her younger sister before she is subjected to uncertain doom.

Fehlbaum treats his characters respectively, not having them shout ridiculous lines, or commit acts of impulsiveness with not even a shred of a thought process as to why. He makes grand use out of his small cast of newcomers and on top of that, creates crafty tension with his co-writers Oliver Kahl and Thomas Woebke using long, uncertain shots that focus either on characters or dried-out, empty landscapes.

But the kicker here is the wonderfully captured, hauntingly displayed, almost blinding cinematography, that cinematographer Markus Förderer personifies into its own character rather quickly. He opens the picture showing off the film's inherently brutal climate with no points of being intrusive or to irritate the casual viewer. It's all a means to concoct suspense and atmosphere for maximum effect. Fehlbaum's Hell has its share of ups and downs, and after a while, you begin to realize you're seeing the same type of areas over and over again. Like movies of its genre, it fluctuates between interesting and not, repetitive and enticing, and beautifully stylistic and much of a muchness. Thankfully, its negative traits are minimized because the film never overstays its eighty-nine minute welcome and provides us with smarter entertainment than I'm sure many of us were expecting.

Starring: Hannah Herzsprung, Stipe Erceg, Lars Eidinger, Lisa Vicari, and Angela Winkler. Directed by: Tim Fehlbaum.

Tim Fehlbaum, Screenwriter and Director of "Hell", has sure taken a difficult and unrewarding challenge upon himself: to make an original post-apocalyptic film, and a good one. And despite what those who enjoy complaining would say - he has done a pretty good job!

Unlike most films, "Hell" keeps things disturbingly realistic, portraying a world in the near by future where global warming has made temperatures dangerously high. All the too-familiar motives of such films are there - scavenging for food/gas, water as the highest currency, some people turned to savages by the harsh reality, distrust and bonding, all of it. And even so, after The Road, I Legend, Book of Eli etc etc, Hell still proved to be very enjoyable. It even has some vampire-films motives, especially "Stake-Land".

Acting, screenplay, cinematography, all weren't innovative, but still good. All in all I've always enjoyed the more realistic post-apocalyptic films, and Hell is definitely one worthy of watching!

The movie premise is almost the same as "The Road", you could see this one as the German The Road with less money spent in the process.

Hell starts in a world where 10 degrees hotter sun scorches the earth and leaves no animal or plantation standing still and so, very few humans living on it's land.

Survivors are forced to live at night and sleep in day, in isolated places, caves or someplace that does not have any direct sunlight because more than 2 hours on the sun will get your skin burned forever and die.

Water and food are scarce and our protagonist had to use all kinds of techniques to get it, this was a nice touch in the movie.

The starting point is beautiful and excellent, nicely filmed and the movie has a nice pace up to the point when they meet the "dangerous people" for lack of a better world that will possibly spoil the movie for you.

At that point, although the movie does not stop it's progress, it slows down a lot and the movie suffers from an apparent lack of new ideas to come forth so, the rest of the movie focus on their escape and nothing else.

So much could be done with this premise, explaining why the sun has behave like this or seeing what other places of the world or cities become, but, due to money constraints I could picture why they didn't do this... still, being that the first part of the movie is great, not all is forgiven. The actors are far better than you would expect and in fact Hannah Herzsprung simply rocks in this one, this girl has a true survivor "sticker" all over her face and still, you will root for her, even when it's obvious.

With this kinds of actors and an excellent first act, the movie suffers a pale second act in comparison, putting this movie in the "good" category where it could have been "great".

Still, nice sci-fi end of the world movie that has a very good concept and nice suspense attached to it.

I give the movie a plus bonus for not being that harsh as The Road on some scenes where the director prefer to leave us to imagine things instead of just showing us so, if you care about the level of graphic violence on movies you can be sure to find very few graphic violence on Hell and this is a nice touch, of course you will see people killing each other but it's rare on this one and when it happens it's done without blood or shocking scenes like The Road does. 80% suspense and guaranteed to like if this is your style.

If you don't know what to watch on a Sunday night, this one is a sure bet even with it's flaws.

To begin I must say that I didn't know that hell means bright in German. I always thought this movie was called HELL by the meaning it has in English and this was the idea of the director. Reading some previous comments I see it's not like that… It seems the director wanted this film to be called HELL just by the brightness and not for the other meaning. But after watch it I can say that in my opinion it can be called by both meanings because both of them fit very well in the plot and the message of the movie! Brightness is constant in the movie, but they also live in a world that really seems like hell!

The plot begins in the year 2016, after a sudden and brutal increase of the global temperature of the Earth. The Sun is brighter than ever and the water is rare and valuable. It's hard to survive in this apocalyptic scenario because people are in a constant search for food and water… We can't see any vegetation (just the trunks of the trees) and the animals died thirsty.

HELL is an action film that resembles to MAD MAX, mostly in the scenario and this background of the apocalyptic world. But it's well done; the settings are really good as they provide us a vision of a desert world full of death and not life; Action is effective and suspenseful, some good fighting scenes are done; Directing and camera work is very nice too. Acting is also fine.

Hell (German for bright) is a nice little German contribution to the post-apocalyptic genre. The story evolves around a small group of survivors in post-apocalyptic Germany: solar flares have destroyed the earth's atmosphere and global temperatures have risen. In the day the sunlight is so strong and hot that travelling outside during daylight hours is dangerous. As in many movies of that genre the law is simple: Homo homini lupus...

A good production and decent acting make this little flick one that plays in the major league of the genre. Good.