HELL (/Slashing Europe 2012)

HELL

Alternate German Title: 
Hell - Die Sonne wird euch verbrennen

Germany / Switzerland, 2011
Director: Tim Fehlbaum

7/10

Tim Fehlbaum's low-budget feature debut "Hell" (German for 'bright'), produced by Roland Emmerich, is one of the very first German-language post-apocalyptic movies ever - and it's a good one! Fehlbaum succeeded in creating an atmospheric, tense and cool-looking survival-horror-drama that can definitely compete with big Hollywood productions.

"Hell" is a beautiful and visually stunning thrillfest, packed with grim settings (barren fields, dead forests) and eerie locations (abandoned farms and gas stations, a creepy railroad tunnel). The story is interesting and well-written (including a predictable but still awesome plot twist), and the whole fight-to-survive scenario is pretty believable.

The movie is mostly quite tense and thrilling, especially in the brutal and action-packed third act which reminds a bit of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". The acting is solid (especially Hannah Herzsprung as survival girl and Angela Winkler as cannibalistic farmwoman) and most of the characters are quite interesting and sympathetic.
Also worth of note: the gloomy score, Nena's "99 Luftballons" and the canned-peaches-for-gas barter.

Some dragging in the middle, a few far-fetched plot points and an unlikable Lars Eidinger - apart from that, "Hell" is one hell of a great German genre-movie
(pun intended).

Wiki ~ Imdb