The Soul Eater Review

The Adams Family, an actual family unit of filmmakers comprised of father John Adams, mother Tobey Poser, and their daughters, quickly established a punk rock DIY spirit, wearing multiple hats each on films The Deeper You Dig, Hellbender, and last year’s Where the Devil Roams. That continues in their latest, Hell Hole, an ambitious ode to the classic creature feature. It’s not the gory creature effects that elevate a classic setup in this scrappy effort, though it certainly helps. It’s the way the Adams Family stretch their creative muscles further, opting for a fun, zany creature feature with a heavy metal attitude and dry humor.

Hell Hole opens in an unexpected place: Serbian territory in 1814, where French soldiers fighting for Napoleon Bonaparte (including one played by Subspecies‘ Anders Hove) are starving and desperate for food. A gift horse is literally trotted out to them by a mysterious woman, who leaves them to their doom as something soon erupts from the animal in a gory fashion. Cut to the present, where the area is now the site of an American-led fracking operation led by Emily (Tobey Poser).

We’re introduced to Emily’s sarcastic but tough-as-nails style of leadership as well as her team, which includes John (John Adams), Teddy (Max Portman), Nikola (Aleksandar Trmčić), and Sofija (Olivera Peruničić), the latter of whom are more environmentalists assigned to keep watch and advise on and prioritize conservation efforts. That comes in handy when the team unearths a dormant parasite that awakens and becomes determined to find a new host.

It’s the precise type of setup that calls to mind films like The Thing, yet it quickly becomes apparent that the Adams Family is more interested in riffing on the classics than adhering to them. To start, their tentacled creature has a rather hysterical means of bodily invasion; man is the warmest place to hide, after all. Adams, Adams, and Poser’s script does mine this particular aspect of the creature’s behavior for all its humor, and the filmmakers find amusing ways to keep track of the creature’s current whereabouts. Instead of instilling a palpable sense of paranoia at a mysterious, carnivorous species in their midst, Hell Hole instead mines the scenario for gory horror laughs.

John Adams and Tobey Poser, who wrote the screenplay with daughter Lulu Adams, also star in the film, with Adams composing the film’s guitar-heavy score. Adams also edits the film, drawing inspiration from his heavy rock score as scene transitions look and sound like a music video. All of this is to say that their DIY ethos is still every bit on display, injecting a lot of personality even when the production design leans into the sparseness of the drill site. The sparse visuals let the creature effects take center stage, and the Adams Family has enlisted some impressive talent for that. SFX legend Todd Masters (“From,” Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight) and his MastersFX team handled the mollusk-like entity’s designs and effects, with Adams Family collaborator Trey Lindsay handling visual effects and stop motion animation. 

More than just splattering buckets of blood everywhere and creating tentacled mayhem, this creature has personality. When the bulk of the dig crew is designated fodder, usually in the most bumbling way for our entertainment, Hell Hole lets its exasperated entity blow off steam and play. It’s preposterous, and it knows it, riffing on everything from over-the-top exposition dumps to making the most asinine choices when faced with a killer parasite. The Adams Family grounds it all with a razor-sharp character in Emily, darkly sweet views on parenthood, and wry commentary on everything from environmentalism to American exceptionalism. 

Hell Hole is another scrappy, DIY love letter to the genre from the Adams Family. It’s a punk rock ode to the creature feature, one that intentionally honors its warts, too. While the budgetary constraints and relentlessly dry sense of humor would polarize in lesser hands, here, it’s an asset and part of the film’s overall charm. The Adams Family gets playful, delivering a gory, squirm-inducing creature feature that plays more like an ultra-violent workplace comedy.

Hell Hole premiered at the Fantasia International Film Festival and releases on Shudder on August 23, 2024.