by Mo Moshaty
Hell Hole (2024) ⭐️⭐️⭐
Hell Hole hails from the filmmaking family behind Hellbender and centers on an American-led fracking crew that uncovers a living French soldier frozen in time from a Napoleonic campaign, whose body hosts a parasitic monster.
You think you got problems? They’re nothing compared to those of the fracking crew in The Adams’ Family’s newest eco-horror/monster movie mashup, HELL HOLE.
With a blend of historical intrigue and a hellishly invasive monstrosity, the film takes you deep into the Serbian wilderness, where an American-led fracking crew is feeling spent. Overworked, under-developing, and mostly bored, the crew get a stark surprise when a drill hits on the horrors beneath the earth’s surface and unearths a strange substance – and now it’s not just a fight against nature, but one of survival.
Emily (Toby Poser), is the deep down hippie but currently business-minded head of the fracking team, along with a team of scientists (Aleksandar Trmčićin, Olivera Perunicic), her partner, American bro, John (John Adams), her wanna-be-dad nephew, Teddy (Maximum Portman) and rag-tag local crew are on their toes because they’ve unwittingly unleashed a dormant parasitic monster, entombed in a rock for centuries…but wait…there’s more! A still living French soldier from the Napoleanic era has been serving as the monster’s host, and it can’t wait to find a new cozy body to hide in (it’s favorite kind seems to be men), wreaking havoc on the crew and civilization as we know it.
Very reminiscent of The Thing and Alien, with socio-political commentary on women’s reproductive rights and men’s view of them, environmental pillaging, erasure and erosion of the natural balance and the never-ending convulsion of morality.
Hell Hole is brave, bold and unafraid to put forth such commentary, drawing viewers into a world where the horrors of the past collide with the consequences of not only modern-day exploitation but that the world itself is a complicated monster. With a soundtrack by John Adams, and a special effects by Todd Masters (Demon Knight, Slither, It Lives Inside), this heavy-metal humic tale has enough bite and burst to keep you clapping.
HELL HOLE hits Shudder August 23rd!
Mo Moshaty is an acclaimed horror writer, lecturer, and producer whose work combines visceral storytelling with the psychological insight of her Cognitive Behavioral Therapy background. She has lectured internationally, including as a keynote speaker at Nightmares from Monkeypaw: A Jordan Peele Symposium (Prairie View A&M), No Return: A Yellowjackets Symposium (Horror Studies BAFSS Sig), The Whole Damn Swarm: Celebrating 30 Years of Candyman (University of California), and with the Centre for the History of the Gothic (University of Sheffield). Mo has also presented at the BFI, Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, and Final Girls Berlin Film Festival’s Brain Binge on women’s trauma in horror cinema, Cine-Excess on The Creepy Kid Horror Subgenre and Mother/Daughter Trauma in Horror, and Romancing the Gothic on Cosmic Horror’s Havoc on The Body Electric Her short film, 13 Minutes of Horror: Sci-Fi Horror, won the 2022 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Short Film. As a core producer with Nyx Horror Collective, Mo co-created the 13 Minutes of Horror Film Fest and partnered with Shudder in 2021 and 2022, while also establishing a Stowe Story Labs fellowship supporting women creatives over 40+ in horror. A member of the Black Women in Horror Class of 2023 and featured in 160 Black Women in Horror, Mo’s short fiction appears in A Quaint and Curious Volume of Gothic Tales (Brigid’s Gate Press) and 206 Word Stories (Bag O’ Bones Press). Her debut novella, Love the Sinner, was released July 5, 2024, with Clairviolence: Tales of Tarot and Torment released in October 2025. The first of her five-volume non-fiction series, The Annex of the Obscure: The Afterlife, will be released in 2027 from Tenebrous Press. As the Editor-in-Chief of NightTide Magazine and founder of Mourning Manor Media, Mo champions marginalized voices in horror. Under her leadership, NightTide plans to launch a film festival in 2028, furthering her mission to reshape the genre through inclusivity and representation.
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