Aahana Swrup
‘Hell Hole,’ a horror creature feature film, brings a terrifyingly slippery tale to the screen as it unearths terrors of the past. Emily leads a fracking team in Serbia, where two researchers, Professor Nico & Sofija, also find themselves providing their scientific expertise. During the same time, Sofija and Emily’s nephew, Teddy, uncover a Napoleonic French soldier who was buried underground for a century yet is still miraculously alive. As the mystery around the soldier unravels, the truth about a parasitic monster emerges, endangering the lives of every single person on the site. Consequently, as the monster wreaks havoc, it raises questions about its origins and Emily and her crew’s ends. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Hell Hole Plot Synopsis
In 1814, while Napoleonic soldiers were stranded in Illyrian provinces, a strange woman supplied them with a horse to stave off their starvation. However, as soon as the soldiers attempt to kill the horse to dine on its meat, the animal explodes, and a monster bursts out of its insides. Years later, in contemporary times, a fracking team has settled down in the same area to dig out the Earth. Although the environmentally inclined scientists on the team, Nico and Sofija, are against the idea, the team leader, Emily, continues with her project. As her team drills into the Earth, they discover a strange, meaty, and pungent substance underground.
Shortly afterward, Emily’s crew, including Sofija and Teddy—the team’s resident chef—comes across a body engulfed in a slimy embryo. From inside the embryo, a highly spooked French man emerges. Strangely enough, the man seems to have the same pungent smell coming from him as the unearthed substance. Although a natural language barrier persists between the French man and others, Teddy realizes that the man wants them to kill him. Nevertheless, they decide to shelter the man for a while until they can contact the authorities from the network and internet-less site.
Meanwhile, Nico and Sofija discover that the earlier-found substance is somehow alive. The exciting discovery, paired with the French man’s arrival, compels them to run some tests for the latter. Later, John, Emily’s close friend at the site, takes a sandwich to the man and finds himself alone in the room with him. As a result, the man manages to get his hands on John’s knife. However, when he attempts to slice his own throat, a horrifying, tentacle-laden critter escapes his body and enters John. In the aftermath of its evacuation, the French man’s body turns into a rotten husk.
When John shares the same with the rest of the group, he leaves out any mention of the monster—too afraid of what it means for him. Nonetheless, as he retires to his room, Niko and Sofija’s research reveals to them that the French man’s body likely housed some parasitic creature inside of it. In the meantime, John spirals out of panic in the company of his roommate, Christian. Eventually, in revealing the truth about the monster to the other man, John accidentally kills Christian, as the parasite inside him attacks the latter.
Hell Hole Ending: What is The Monster? Where Did it Come From?
As soon as the French man is discovered within the depths of the Earth, a natural curiosity arises about the horrors that he is unwillingly housing inside of him. From the flashback that opens up the film’s narrative, it remains evident that the French man is actually one of the soldiers from 1814. However, the monster residing inside of him isn’t actually the same monster that killed his comrades. Instead, his parasite is an egg that belongs to the original monster.
In Niko and Sofija’s research, they discovered that the dug-up substance is indicative of a cephalopod, relating the animal closely to Octopi. Furthermore, from the French man’s samples they collected, they realized that the embryo surrounding him had indeed been an egg. Thus, the reality emerges that whatever creatures remain are buried underground—which we know to be horse parasites—must have laid their eggs inside the man. For the same reason, the monster utilizes exclusively male humans as its host as it grows inside of them until maturity.
Essentially, the parasitic monster makes its host its egg. For the same reason, it prioritizes the safety of its host, even preventing them from committing suicide and leaving it bereft of a shell. Likewise, once it becomes obvious that its current host isn’t up to the task—or that there is a stronger host nearby—the monster explodes out of its current human and transfers onto the next. Even though the parasite’s horrifying takeover of a human body supersedes its fascinating existence for most people, the same doesn’t remain true for Niko. As such, the next morning, when John attempts to hide Christian in the woods—and ends up transferring the parasite to another worker, Danko—Niko remains more concerned about preserving the monster’s life than the man.
What Happens to Danko? Does He Die?
Although John is able to keep his parasitic takeover a secret from the others, after his death, the next victim—Danko—instantly reveals the entire truth to Emily and the crew. Something about having the monster inside of his body seems to have made him realize that he isn’t coming out of this experience alive. For the same reason, much like the French soldier, he begs the others to kill him. While Niko is against the idea because he wants to protect the monster, the others aren’t willing to sacrifice an innocent human life. However, outside of Emily’s close friends, the Serbian construction crew, led by Luca, seems intent on killing Danko. They believe he’s infected by some virus that he can spread out to others.
Nonetheless, Emily manages to come up with an alternate solution after some time, only to come up empty-handed. Since Luca and his crew are the ones with guns, their will ends up being final. Perhaps Danko’s constant pleas for his death ease their conscience as well. In the end, Luca and his colleagues take Danko out to the woods, where they plan on executing him. Although he tells Emily he plans on taking him to the police in the next town over—his lack of subtlety isn’t fooling anyone, including Dnako.
Once the crew arrives in the woods and sets their weapons on Danko, he warns them to allow his death a wide berth. Yet, the crew paid him no mind—which would have hardly done much. As the crew shoots Danko, the monster emerges from his body and begins hopping from one body to another across the group as they try to eliminate it. In the carnage that follows, even the sole female worker—who wouldn’t have fit the parasite’s reproduction-driven gender preference—ends up getting shot by her own team. Ultimately, in Luca’s quest to kill Danko, the man ends up dead, but so do the rest of his crew members. Furthermore, Luca now houses the parasite inside himself.
Is The Monster Gone? Is It Inside Teddy?
After the killing spree in the woods, Luca returns to Emily and the group. Although he attempts to keep his predicament a secret at first, Niko quickly figures him out. Pleased to know that the creature is still alive and well, Niko ends up doting and hovering over Luca, resolutely keeping his secret. Nevertheless, as the team empties out the site, the reality of his demise creeps up on Luca, who realizes he can never go home without endangering his loved ones. For the same reason, he decides to end his life and leave the creature stranded by drowning himself in the lake of the woods.
Emily and the others—bar Niko—remain understanding of Luca’s decision. Even so, as the man drowns to his death, it hardly spells out the end of the monster. The parasite has gained much strength after growing up substantially inside his numerous hosts. Thus, as it bursts out of Luca, it traps his next victim all the way over to the shore. Ironically enough, Luca ends up being the monster’s next preferred choice of host. However, while he proclaimed he’d be proud to be its host earlier, he’s less than willing once the opportunity actually presents itself.
Although Sofija tries to help him by slashing at the monster’s tentacles, her aim isn’t true, and her blade ends up slashing through the professor instead. As he falls to his death, Emily realizes Teddy is the only possible victim left for the monster. As such, she orders him to leave and tries to distract the parasite to no avail. Thus, in the end, as Teddy and Sofija run for their lives, the monster inevitably ends up following them. As the narrative ends, it cuts to a shot of the pair in the future, with Sofija giving Teddy a bath as a somber mood surrounds their bathroom.
Even though the narrative doesn’t make it explicit, the implied reality remains: the monster has made its home inside Teddy. The monster only attaches itself to male humans as a pre-requisite of its reproduction-driven parasitic relationship demands. Consequently, Teddy would have been his only option for miles and miles nearby. Considering that the man is still somehow alive, the only logical explanation remains that he is now the egg for the monster. Earlier in the film, Teddy had expressed his dilemma about whether or not they could condemn the monster for its desire to survive. Likewise, he has been patently against every host’s desire to kill themselves.
Therefore, it makes sense that after Teddy becomes the monster’s host, he decides to make peace with his predicament and hopes that he will survive once the monster matures and leaves his body. Meanwhile, Sofija, who had dreamed about studying insects and had remained excited to learn more about the creature, can now do the same as it leeches off of the man she had developed feelings for. In a twisted way, the duo arrived at an ending they wouldn’t have opposed—if only it hadn’t been for the bloodthirsty parasite residing inside Teddy’s body.
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