In This Is Spinal Tap, one of the eponymous rock band’s hits is called Hell Hole. As the song has it, “It’s better / In a hell hole / You know where you stand / In a hell hole.” The sentiment applies perfectly to this amiable low-budget effort from the Adamses, a self-taught film-making family, that hits all the notes required of this type of movie, to mostly satisfying effect.
The subgenre of horror here is the rampage of the eldritch beastie: think HP Lovecraft, The Thing, or The Blob. These critters usually come from above or below, winging their way in from outer space or emerging from a long snooze beneath the surface of the Earth. In this instance, it’s the slumber party option, as environmentalists and a crew of US-led frackers encounter a freaky octopoid parasite while drilling in a remote part of Serbia. Soon enough, the octopoid baby is worming its way into their inner circles, quite literally.
