Hellhole – 2022 – Polish Horror!
Hellhole is a Polish horror movie but I must confess that I saw the English dubbed version. I can go on and on about how I hate what the Germans do with movies. They dub everything, or at least they used to. That’s why it’s always an adventure buying a German edition of a movie or series. You never really know if it’s English friendly or not. I guess most of DVD and Blu rays are nowadays but I really don’t know.
But of course. I even hate that the title is in German on the text on the back om the cover. But I can live with that on occasion. There are not many German editions in my shelfs to be sure.
Dubbed to English
But Hellhole is a Polish horror movie which I saw dubbed to English. Just to make everything extra clear. This of course mean that I cannot fully judge the acting since I really don’t know how the original soundtrack sounds like. I can’t use the voices to determine if the actors really live themselves into the part their playing. But it’s a dubbing job well done I should say. I can see on the lip movements that it’s not totally synced but it’s not voices that only lives “outside” of the movies if you know what I mean. There’s no Polish underneath and English on top.
The story is briefly about a police that goes under cover in a convent. There are plenty of women that has gone missing and he is there to investigate. The convent is really strange and you can tell right away that there’s something fishy going on there. He presents himself as a priest there for a while but we – the audience, of course knows better. And I think it’s pretty obvious that his cover doesn’t fool the monks much either.
Faked Exorcism
He witnesses an exorcism which he soon reveals to be completely fake. The food eaten in the monastery also seems very mysterious. And also really disgusting. You might figure that this is a part of the religious beliefs, to endure hard circumstances. I don’t really know how it is in real life but when it comes to movies it’s not unusual that the monks or nuns are forced to live a very sparse life. Sometimes they whip themselves and do other stuff just to challenge their faith.
Well, it goes a few days until he thinks he’s had enough and tries to leave. But very soon he discovers that there’s no actual way out of this Hellhole. He’s stuck there and the Cloisters residents are not really what they seem. I like the way the decay into almost total hopelessness is portrayed. The makeup effects are really good and I also like the cinematography. You almost feel the claustrophobic sensation chilling down your spine.
I also get some vibes of movies like The Wicker Man and that something is luring the main character in. You know, just like a fish that’s get caught on the hook. Slowly wheeling the poor thing until it’s completely over.
Well Executed
I won’t go into too much detail, but most of it is pretty obvious if you’ve seen a few movies like this one. But still I don’t think the audience is declared stupid. It’s still a very subtle part of the story which could have been told in a much more dumbfounding way.
It’s a good horror flick, well executed. It doesn’t really scare me but then again, very few movies do. But I enjoyed it thoroughly and I think it’s highly recommendable. I just wish I haven’t seen it, so I could see it again.
