‘Hell Hole’: Fantasia Review

Dirs: Toby Poser, John Adams. US/Serbia. 2024. 91mins

The latest offering from the Adams family (The Deeper You Dig (2019), Hellbender (2021), etc) promises a ”hole new kind of hell”. Genre fans might disagree, as Hell Hole serves up a familiar, old-school parasitic monster romp – albeit one embellished with slightly less familiar ecological and biological concerns. A restrained production favours story over splatter but eventually delivers a fair amount of gloopy, tentacled creatures and exploding host bodies. That should be enough to satisfy Adams aficionados and generate a decent audience for its Shudder streaming premiere in late August, following a world premiere at Fantasia. 

Poser and Adams effectively sustain momentum

Hell Hole begins in Serbia, 1814, where lost and hungry French soldiers think they have found their salvation in a local woman who gifts them a horse. How wrong they are. Over two centuries later, Americans Emily (Toby Poser) and John (John Adams) head a fracking crew working in the remote Rtanj mountain valley of Serbia. Perky science intern Sofija (Olivera Perunicic) proves prophetic with her observation that ”there’s a whole world under the ground that you can’t imagine”. Given that her degree is in parasitology they really should have paid her more attention. Even the ungodly stench seemingly emanating from the earth’s bowels doesn’t convince them that the fracking operation will end badly.

Their first find is a Napoleonic French soldier, who has survived two hundred years buried underground thanks to a dormant parasitic monster living in his body. His request that they should kill him is another warning sign ignored at their peril. Now, the unleashed human/mollusc hybrid has a much wider choice of bodies that it might inhabit, impregnate and use to carry its spawn to full term.

Hell Hole makes resourceful use of a location that appears to be an abandoned Soviet power station. The grim look, grey cell-like spaces and feeling of abandonment help to enhance the bleak atmosphere. Naturally, the fracking operation is currently cut off from the world – literally, when flooding makes the road impassable – with no internet access and no means of communication. A small group of workers and scientists in an isolated location carries inevitable echoes of Agatha Christie, the Alien franchise, John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) and other genre touchstones.

Co-directors, co-writers and co-stars Poser and Adams keep the emphasis on building a plausible story. Sofija, played as a wide-eyed, super enthusiastic geek by Perunicic, delivers screeds of scientific exposition, while the local crew of pot-smoking, porn-loving, macho workers provide the scepticism, and bantering comic relief. The B-movie dialogue is enhanced with some flashes of eccentric wit along the way. Poser’s no nonsense boss Emily drily reveals: “Believe it or not, I voted for Bernie Saunders. ”

The mildly intriguing elements folded into the story revolve around ecological, anti-fracking warnings and a growing belief that the creature can only carry its offspring in male bodies. Glimpses of the creature are kept to a minimum, with special-effects veteran Todd Masters supplying the sticky tentacles and messy deaths. The cast display varying degree of ability and commitment, with Petar Arsic making an impression as Serbian worker and philosophical potential victim Danko.

As the threat increases and the cast list dwindles, Poser and Adams effectively sustain momentum, punctuating events with repeated blasts of a pounding, heavy metal soundtrack by Adams that overstays its welcome. A tight running time is welcome but leads to a rushed and slightly underwhelming climax – with the suggestion that there is much more hell to come.