Not as bad as I expected or feared.
Living Hell is set in New Mexico where US military base Fort Lambert is about to be closed for good, however a full check of the premises has to be made under the supervision of Colonel Erik Maitland (James McDaniel). In a small nearby town a man named Frank Sears (Jonathon Schaech) it trying to find the base, once he gets directions & finds it Franks demands to see someone in authority but is told to go away. Frank is persistent & breaks into the base, Sears tells how his mother who committed suicide worked at Fort Lambert in 1959 & that she warned him vault twelve in sub-level three must never be opened. Curious Maitland sends a team to check the vault out where they find a false wall containing some sort of tank with a dead monkey & man inside covered in what looks like roots. The roots return to life & start spreading out, engulfing & killing everything in their way, soon the entire base is covered in them & they continue to grow at an astronomical rate, eventually the military realise they are dealing with a giant organism that feeds off energy & destroys everything in it's path...Released under the title Organism on DVD in the US this made-for-telly sci-fi horror film was written co-produced & directed by Richard Jeffries & much to my surprise isn't completely awful, Living hell felt like a modern updating of The Blob (1958) in many ways with the old standby of the US military, secret experiments & Government conspiracies getting the blame rather than some extra-terrestrial alien force. I mean we blame the Government for everything else so why not huge organisms that threaten to engulf & destroy the entire planet? As a result of some military experiments during the Cold War an organism was created from a scientists DNA that basically feeds off any sort of energy & destroys everything in it's path as it grow's, there's some scientific techno-babble about it being half animal half plant but I was never convinced but the film does have a decent premise that is maybe bigger than the production could have given justice to as the organism threatens to engulf the entire world. The resolution is also a bit of a cop-out & is about the simplest & quickest concept that the makers could have come up with. All in all not a bad sci-fi horror 'Creature Feature' but by no means any sort of classic either, Living Hell will pass 90 odd minutes harmlessly enough but you will have probably forgotten about it by the next day.
Well made with good production values this looks quite nice actually, the real desert locations help & even the CGI computer effects are actually reasonable. The organism just looks like the roots of a plant growing & moving incredibly fast with a squelching style sound effect, not the scariest thing ever put on screen but it's makes for a powerful nemesis. There's little in the way of gore, a woman commits suicide by shooting herself through the head & there's a bit of blood while there's also a few vine infested rotten body shots too. For the perverts out there there's an out of place feeling scene in which a woman strips down to her underwear & then Frank coats her in his own blood, whatever turns you on I suppose. There's a slight lack of momentum here & not enough is put at threat, it's not until near the end when they discover the organism feeds of energy & the sun is about to rise that the urgency grow's & the pace quickens but overall Living Hell really isn't a bad effort at all.
Apparently filmed in just twenty nine days on location in New Mexico on a supposed budget of about $4,500,000 this is much better than your average Sci-Fi Channel premiere. The acting is alright, I mean it's nothing amazing but alright.
Living Hell is actually a half decent little sci-fi horror creature feature that should have been crap but surprisingly isn't, I will admit it's no masterpiece for sure but as a way to pass 90 odd minutes you could do a lot worse. Much better than I expected.
score 5/10
poolandrews 19 August 2010
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2297807/35424
Pages:
[1]