Starring Toby Poser, John Adams and Anders Hove. Written by John Adams, Lulu Adams and Toby Poser. Directed by John Adams and Toby Poser. Produced by Matt Manjourides and Justin A. Martell.

This flick begins with a large tentacle extending from a Napoleonic soldier’s arse! And why not, eh?!  Jumping to the present, a Napoleonic soldier’s (still-living) body is pulled from a fleshy cocoon in the muddy soil near a fracking operation, and a killer parasite begins to infect one victim after another.

We learn that the parasite-mollusc always chooses male victims because their sperm is needed to fertilise the egg of this creature, and little nuggets of extra information regarding the mollusc-thingy are revealed, keeping the plot kinda interesting, but the narrative drive is continually stalled by the filmmakers’ decision to constantly halt proceedings for yet another scene of characters standing around, chatting.

The creature’s host-hopping activities lack the variety and impact of THE THING (1982), but the CGI is adequate, supplemented by quick cuts to a practical creature model. The critter itself, when it is seen clearly at the end, is a novel little squid-beast with an eye encircled by protruding teeth. 

HELL HOLE, made by the Adams Family – father John Adams, mother Toby Poser, and daughter Lulu Adams – is definitely a watchable film that really could’ve been better with a less repetitive plot.

But, hey, the movie earns a thumbs-up because it does include folks exploding and, of course, it features arse-tentacles too!