Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Hellhole' (2020)

Fucking movie is a cock tease. Just when it was getting good it left me feeling disappointed. I obviously can't talk about it without going into the spoilers, but I feel super let down. I was so let down it almost ruined the movie for me. I guess the rest is good enough that it was still worth it, but I definitely won't ever bother watching this again. So yeah, before we get into the meat and tatters, this movie was worth at least one go. If you're a fan of horror, give this a shot.

So, I should say, besides the ending, this movie did everything right. The atmosphere is superb. Me and my wife were going on about how it was very much like a Guillermo del Toro movie with just the setting and FX alone. Bartosz M. Kowalski should be seriously proud of his work just for that. It's fucking DARK. Something I applaud in a lot of horror movies because the atmosphere is so dark you have to watch them in the dark which really sets the mood. And the setting is fucking perfect. It's just so, musty. You can smell it. It looks like everything is just dry rotting in the background. And this movie doesn't have a problem being kinda gross about it, either.

The voice acting is really good, I must say. The voice actors match the actual actors in tone and depth without issue. You could easily swap them out and you'd never notice the difference. I can literally see Lance Henriksen in my head gesturing like he was the guy in front of the camera. Olaf Lubaszenko and Henriksen just match perfectly as the part of the Priory. And yes, the actual actors are good too. Honestly, good enough for Hollywood.

Now, the plot reminds me a little bit of The Name of the Rose (1986). It's about an investigation into a monastery. In this case, the investigator is a member of The People's Militia, undercover as a monk, investigating the disappearance of several women who were supposedly taken care of at the monk's sanitorium. As the plot for a drama, that's already fucking solid. But what makes it horror is the supernatural element. The monks are exorcists and the sanitorium is specifically for the possessed. There are always little hints that the monastery is actually host to the devil. I'm not going to ruin it for you as to whether or not it is, but I will say the plot very poorly walks the line of cerebral horror. The reality is a little too easy to tell, and half of what makes shit scary is not knowing.

But I don't want that last part to deter you. Honestly, the ending should deter you, but I can't talk about that till the spoilers. As I said, this movie is good for at least one go.

SPOILERS!!!

I think one of the best scenes in this movie is what the whole movie should have aspired to. We find out pretty quickly that all the exorcisms at the monastery are fake. This would seem to suggest that there's nothing supernatural going on and that the monks are just covering up accidentally (or intentionally) having killed multiple patients. This would lead you to suspect that nothing supernatural is actually going on and that the monks are just idiotic religious zealots. However, far too much supernatural stuff keeps happening so we know something else must be going on. What we discover is that the monks are part of a cult that are trying to summon Satan to punish the world and bring on the end times. We find out that the main character has a birthmark that denotes him as 'the chosen one' for this ritual. We discover that the monks have been secretly feeding the main character human flesh as part of this ritual. And again, all sorts of obvious fucked up supernatural shit just keeps happening. So it sorta ruins the unknown by being too known. However, it also leads to one of the funniest god damn scenes I've ever seen in a horror movie. The monks complete the ritual and... nothing fucking happens. They even try it a couple times but nothing happens. Did they fuck it up? Was a mistake made? Is it all bullshit? Who fucking knows. But that's just fucking funny. Everything climaxes to this very moment and... fucking nothing.

But that's not the ending. Let me tell you about the ending and why it can go fuck itself. All of this leads to a moment when the main character does in fact eventually become a vessel for Satan and Satan finally rises, late to the party and you're just like, "ah man, that mother fucker is gonna fuck some shit up and murder some fucking monks, and maybe have a rampage through town, killing hundreds of innocent people" AND... nothing fucking happens. See, that's not funny. At this point, something should fucking happen. I mean, they do a big reveal and we get to see Satan, but then the movie just fucking ends. That's like a prostitute bringing you right to the edge but your hour is suddenly up right before you cum. That, that right there, that isn't funny at all. That's some fucking bullshit.

Anyway, if you read this part before watching the movie, I promise it's still worth it. Fucking BARELY worth it, but worth it.