While searching for something creepy and possibly scary, I stumbled upon Hellhole, a Netflix original movie from Poland. I decided, sure, this will be enough for tonight. I settled in, grabbed a cup of coffee, and began watching. Here is your HellHole review.
I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by HellHole. But I’ll get into all the details as to why in the sections below.
HellHole Review, The Plot
The plotline is simple enough. There’s something weird going on in the creepy, secluded monastery. Several local women have entered and never left.
When they’ve investigated, the priests stated that each woman was possessed by a demon, and exorcized. However, they died during the exorcism and were buried on monastery grounds.
To continue an in-depth investigation, the Polish militia sends in a police officer to go undercover.
Where are these women? What really happened to them? Are they really dead?
Characters in Hellhole
There are several characters. There’s the main character, Marek, portrayed by Piotr Żurawski. The lead priest, Prior Andrzej, is played by Olaf Lubaszenko, and his sidekick, Brother Priotr, is played by Sebastian Stankiewicz.
They make the entire movie with others mixed in, of course.
Hellhole has a scary atmosphere.
The creepy atmosphere is incredible. The set design is impressive. It feels and looks super authentic.
It felt like something out of The Omen, and I really enjoyed that.
It’s a disgusting movie with an eeriness to it.
Although there aren’t any jump scares. And even though it’s a scary movie, it’s not that scary. But it’s fun to watch.
I felt like maybe Guillermo Del Toro was involved somehow. It had his aesthetic.
I would say most of the special effects were practical, with only a few moments of CGI. Everything else seemed like it was prosthetics or camera tricks, but it works in this environment.
Hellhole is that slow burn you will enjoy. And that’s saying something because I don’t like slow burns. I prefer my scary movies with fast action and lots of gore.
Hellhole has gore, but not gratuitous gore. All the gore has its purpose.
And there are flies everywhere, which is super gross.
Spoiler Alert: You’re in for some creepy stuff
Skip this section if you don’t want to read any spoilers. Head directly to the section called “What I didn’t Like” to continue reading the Hellhole review without spoilers.
Ok. Here we go.
The movie has all sorts of gross stuff, and they do such a good job at portraying nasty, grotesque things.
- The food they’re eating. Oh my god. Disgusting. It looks so bad, you know it has to be raw dog or something. It just looks unappealing.
- They’re barfing up flies and critters with wings. Not to mention everything they hack up is black.
- When Marek starts losing his teeth, he takes a molar out, and a fly hatches out of it. NASTY!
- What’s with the living eyeball? I didn’t get that part. Other than it was gross only to be gross.
What I Didn’t Like
At first, the storyline doesn’t seem original. I mean, a police officer who goes in to investigate exorcisms gone wrong? Then he discovers that it’s a hoax and all the exorcisms were faked. I mean, haven’t I seen this movie before?
Honestly, I tuned out after the first 20 minutes. I seriously thought I had watched this already.
But as the movie goes on, the better it gets.
The other thing I didn’t like was the ending. However, the ending sequence was great. I just wanted more. It left me hanging so badly that I was like “NO! WTH! What’s going to happen now!?”
I mean, I know it’s intentional when a movie does that, but the momentum builds and builds so much that you’re beginning to love the movie, and suddenly it ends.
I mean, where are we, France?
And then there was the obvious. It was a tad predictable. But they made up for it when Marek directly addressed how predictable the situation was.
Also, the twist you see coming was as magnificent as you thought it would be.
Final Words
I enjoyed Hellhole overall. It was decent and pretty gross. It’s not spectacular. But if I were having a movie night, I would pair this with The Omen and Rosemary’s Baby. It’s that type of scary movie.
I’m giving it 3 hatches out of 5 because it was good, just not amazing.
Do I recommend it? Oh yes. Give it a watch and then let me know what you thought about it in the comments.
