“When I strangled him…”
‘As one does with the French…’

Story: When a group of French soldiers in Serbia, circa 1841, find that they’re hungry, a horse is delivered…but modern day frackers in that area had wished they’d left that horse alone. Or at least not found the lone survivor of that day. Wait. Is there something…COMING OUT OF HIS BUTT???

Scares: More fun and freaky than spooky.
Splat Factor: People literally explode. So yeah, that’s a 10-4, good buddy.

Subgenre: Fiendishly Fun Monster Madness
Year Released: 2024
Remake, Sequel or OG (Original Ghoul)?: Original, but the “Who Goes There” vibes are strong.

Trick or Treat?: A mix of The Thing, Dreamcatcher, and Viral, this subversively silly body horror is from the same folks who gave us Hellbender. Like that film, John Adams and Toby Poser write, direct, and star. Hole is more comedic than the family dynamics horror/drama of Hellbender, and it’s a great new addition to the horror comedy genre.

The comedic elements come hard and fast, as does the story itself. Our Gang tries to figure out what’s happening, how to deal with things, and in a few cases the best way to disassociate from what’s going on. Yeah, we’ve got frackers, but also environmentalists making sure the endangered Koslov’s pika isn’t getting it’s environment further whittled down. Couple that with locals hired for the job, as well as a chef and environmental intern (really studying parasitology, how convenient) just happy to be there. It’s a mix of different types of people, and those differences come to light as the story progresses.

Hole is an example of how to do everything on a film, and do it well. Adams and Poser are great as the laid-back Everyman-type characters that thought this gig would be a relatively easy one. The group of Serbian contractors are played with gusto, and the mix of English and Serbian throughout the film gives things a realistic touch. And the combination of Todd Masters’ FX and Trey Lindsay’s VFX make things a gloopy, glorious mess.

Our Gang tries to figure out 1) how a 17th Century soldier is still alive, 2) how to talk to that dude because nobody speaks French, and then 3) how to stay alive when who know what is going on. Things progress about as well as you’d expect from a group of clueless, freaked-out people, more than half of whom don’t want to believe the crazypants reason for the mayhem. As people either try to avoid getting got, get ‘sploded, and/or try to save the creature – there’s one mad scientist in every “and then there were none” story, amirite – the red stuff gets everywhere. The FX are anime-level, so everything is more of a blast than scary.

This one’s a good one for folks with stronger stomachs (because you’ll be seeing quite a bit of entrails), or folks who are lightweight, but can deal with comedic violence. At a little less than an hour and a half, Hole doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, but the ending feels a bit unfinished. It’s literally a smash cut to the survivors relaxing. Um, hello? There are hints as to what happened, but while I’m typically a fan of the oblique ending, this one felt detached from the rest of the film. Ah well. We can’t have everything. But at least we can have fun while the fun lasts.

Fun Fact: the cephalopod the intern references is the Argonaut, aka the paper nautilus. My invertebrate-loving self had to mention that. But the real-life creature doesn’t do…all that. YET. *cues menacing music*

Score: 3.5 out of 5 pumpkins.