‘Hell Hole’ Unearths Eco-Punk Body Horror Mayhem [Fantasia 2024 Review]
One of the reasons The Adams Family are such an exciting voice in indie horror right now is that the blood-tied collaborators are able to keep genre fans guessing. After unleashing Where the Devil Roams, one of my favorite releases of 2023, the gang is back with a very different vision of monstrous chaos.
Co-directed by Toby Poser and John Adams, Hell Hole shares many of the same omens that made the families’ previous titles so exciting and singular. For instance, the visuals and tone are vintage beauty: cold, indifferent, and injected with doom-encrusted regret. This time, however, the scope feels somewhat bigger, sillier, and more accessible to a broader range of horror fans than their usual arthouse gems.
The story here sees an American team of oil-hungry opportunists leading a fracking expedition in remote Siberia. The group is managed by Emily (Toby Poser), a no-bullshit leader and reluctant matriarch to a bunch of (mostly) younger men. The team is understandably shocked when they accidentally exhume a centuries-old French soldier who is being kept alive by some sickening cocoon. Still alive but desperate for death, it becomes clear that the soldier has a parasitical monster living within his body … and it’s on the lookout for some new hosts.
Soon, Emily and her team are witness to carnage and body horror like they could have never possibly imagined. Unsure of who to trust or how to find help, the Americans and the Siberians find themselves divided in a war for survival and their own bodies. A satirical creature feature that’s impossible not to hold in the same sentence as John Carpenter’s The Thing, Hell Hole is a new bag of nasty surprises from The Adams Family who arrive like we’ve never seen them before.
While still recognisably Adams, this movie is an old-school body horror Monster Mash, and tonally more absurd than usual. This still suits the style of Poser and Adams well, artists who have previously wrought visions of punk-genre madness through arthouse, experimental, and period drama. Their Shudder original, however, is a more straightforward, no-frills horror movie, but their DIY-bandit-artistry is still very present. If it is less visible, it’s not as much about the visual, visceral violence this time as it is its critical messaging.
That said, the visuals in Hell Hole are sometimes a bit above its pay grade. Yet, part of its punk sensibilities makes me think the filmmakers are aware and that it doesn’t matter. The ideas behind the nastiness are freaky and not hindered much by a lack of resources. Alienlike tentacles inserted through the anus, nose, or wherever else they can get to will make the seasoned horror fan squirm and their civilian date downright nauseous.
The monstrous evils of this movie are sticking themselves in all sorts of places they don’t belong … and I’m not just referring to human orifices. While allusions between the evils of fracking for oil and a parasitical monster penetrating a human host are sometimes all too clear, it’s still something I’m not sure I’ve encountered quite like this until now. It’s this body horror, eco-punk analogy that ultimately carries Hell Hole to the finish line and gives it its long-term value as a unique genre recommendation.
While its script may not be the strongest ever produced by this group of artists, the messaging is bold, fresh, and capital “i” important. The film stands above its predecessors with yet another standout supporting performance by Poser as the hardened Emily, a competent woman struggling to save her team. We should hate her and her group for what they’re doing, but early on, their performances promise that they’re no different from us. And that greed is innate to the human condition. But they sure as shit get what’s coming to them.
Hell Hole premieres via Shudder on Friday, August 23rd
-
Hell Hole
Summary
While the visuals are little rough around its edges, the parasitical body horrors of ‘Hell Hole’ read like a punk kid’s frostbitten love letter to John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing.’
