The Adams Family's filmmaking evolves alongside a body-snatching parasite in Hell Hole
The Adams Family filmmaking collective has crafted another creepy, kooky horror, this time about a tentacled parasite that invades human hosts.
Photo: Shudder
The eighth feature helmed by the nuclear Adams Family, Hell Hole once again mines from pointed genre influences for the filmmakers’ home-grown creative approach. They’ve previously explored killer carnivals, witch covens, and psychic slashers, and now they train their lens on an environmentally resonant creature feature. Following an American fracking team stationed in Serbia, the Adams’ latest scales up in terms of visual effects, but somewhat strays from the one-man (or rather, one-family) band ethos that made their crop of low-budget horror films so intimate and enticing in the first place. When the guts and goop start flying, however, there’s no denying that the Adams Family have cooked up another bloody good time, even if the overarching mood doesn’t feel as consciously constructed.
Co-directed by spouses John Adams and Toby Poser, Hell Hole opens with some vital background. In 1814, a troop of Napoleonic soldiers wanders the Serbian wilderness after being pushed out of the Illyrian Provinces. Though they’re weak and on the brink of starvation, a crawling, tentacled creature sends them running through the forest for their lives. 210 years in the future, Americans Emily (Poser), John (Adams), and Teddy (Maximum Portman) find themselves on the same land, this time leading a fracking expedition that they hope will result in a big payout. Even before they begin drilling, though, environmental scientists Nikola (Aleksandar Trmčić) and Sofija (Olivera Peruničić) show up to warn that their venture will likely prove devastating for local wildlife. While both parties have different relationships to their surrounding environment—as prospective resource or preserve—they will soon encounter a parasitic being that defies the very laws of nature, no matter the ethics of interacting with it.