A German post apocalypse movie ? Last time I saw something resembling one of those movies was Wim Wender's UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD . You remember that don't you ? The world ends in three hours and everyone stands around discussing the human condition in a film so dull , pretentious and talkative you'll be thinking that Michael Bay is perhaps a misunderstood Orson Welles in comparison so I went in to HELL with some trepidation . No need because whatever its faults HELL is a unpretentious mainstream international horror movie that one rarely sees coming out of Germany
That said it is heavily flawed and ill thought out . The premise involves solar flares that has scorched the Earth destroying civilization and making it impossible to stay out in the sunlight for any length of time while at the same time evaporating the reservoirs and food chain . Or has it ? This is the major flaw of the film it's never consistently explained what effect this has on individuals or human society . A character claims two hours exposure to the sun light is near fatal but this scenario collapses when given serious thought . Early in the film two characters haggle over swapping water for petrol and one character replies to the other he'd get more " in a city " . So cities still exist in this post apocalyptic world ? The logic behind the plotting revolves around the idea there will be water in the mountains and if you suspend disbelief for long enough you can perhaps see the logic in this to a degree but too often the storytelling draws attention to the ludicrous nature of the plot . The reality is human beings would die without water in three days . If the taps in the cities stopped working the human race would almost certainly die out before people would consider cannibalism to survive. It's also illogical to assume that only a handful of people have come up with the bright idea to head to the mountains . This is what's known as contrived plotting and HELL is full of these contrived plot turns
Some people have referred to this movie as " A German version of THE ROAD " . They're right to a degree but I was also constantly reminded of 28 DAYS LATER . The original premise of the solar flares becomes quickly forgotten the same as the infected become forgotten about in Boyle's film as both films share a common ground of " Would a woman prostitute herself in unpleasant circumstances to simply survive ? " . HELL doesn't really explore this idea too much as it's trying to be a commercial horror movie and to be fair for a low budget horror from Europe it did manage to keep this audience member involved in this segment . Like 28 DAYS LATER it does often feel like its two films stuck together
In summary HELL is an uneven mixture of good and bad . One can't help thinking the producers had two films . One film featuring civilization collapsing due to solar flares and another featuring a backwoods brutality tale featuring mountain cannibals and merging the two to come up with one unsatisfactory movie . If you're a fan of the horror genre you'll like it and it's good to see a German film that doesn't feature either war guilt or introspective pretentious brooding . But like so many other horror films you also can't help noticing how dumb situations and characters in this genre can be
That said it is heavily flawed and ill thought out . The premise involves solar flares that has scorched the Earth destroying civilization and making it impossible to stay out in the sunlight for any length of time while at the same time evaporating the reservoirs and food chain . Or has it ? This is the major flaw of the film it's never consistently explained what effect this has on individuals or human society . A character claims two hours exposure to the sun light is near fatal but this scenario collapses when given serious thought . Early in the film two characters haggle over swapping water for petrol and one character replies to the other he'd get more " in a city " . So cities still exist in this post apocalyptic world ? The logic behind the plotting revolves around the idea there will be water in the mountains and if you suspend disbelief for long enough you can perhaps see the logic in this to a degree but too often the storytelling draws attention to the ludicrous nature of the plot . The reality is human beings would die without water in three days . If the taps in the cities stopped working the human race would almost certainly die out before people would consider cannibalism to survive. It's also illogical to assume that only a handful of people have come up with the bright idea to head to the mountains . This is what's known as contrived plotting and HELL is full of these contrived plot turns
Some people have referred to this movie as " A German version of THE ROAD " . They're right to a degree but I was also constantly reminded of 28 DAYS LATER . The original premise of the solar flares becomes quickly forgotten the same as the infected become forgotten about in Boyle's film as both films share a common ground of " Would a woman prostitute herself in unpleasant circumstances to simply survive ? " . HELL doesn't really explore this idea too much as it's trying to be a commercial horror movie and to be fair for a low budget horror from Europe it did manage to keep this audience member involved in this segment . Like 28 DAYS LATER it does often feel like its two films stuck together
In summary HELL is an uneven mixture of good and bad . One can't help thinking the producers had two films . One film featuring civilization collapsing due to solar flares and another featuring a backwoods brutality tale featuring mountain cannibals and merging the two to come up with one unsatisfactory movie . If you're a fan of the horror genre you'll like it and it's good to see a German film that doesn't feature either war guilt or introspective pretentious brooding . But like so many other horror films you also can't help noticing how dumb situations and characters in this genre can be