Webseries Review: HellHoles

By Melissa Voelker

Everyone has lived somewhere that felt like it was hell. Either the neighbors partied all night and kept you awake, or you lived atop a nightclub that seemed to be packed each night of the week, or all of your appliances had a nasty habit of catching on fire every other time you used them. But while living in a place the city wants to condemn may FEEL like hell, it couldn’t be as bad as Guy’s new trailer, which actually IS hell. Or at least a portal to hell.

HellHoles is a four episode webseries created by Kyle Rankin and Efram Potelle (directors of the feature film The Battle of Shaker Heights starring Shia Lebeouf) and released through AtomFilms Studio. It originally premiered back in 2006 but has not lost any of its hilarity since then. Each episode runs around four minutes with the finale episode nearing five. There is also a bloopers reel and an audio commentary for the first episode for any die-hard fans that like all of the extras.

This is a very slickly produced webseries, with special effects that would fit in on any modern TV show. The humor is dry and absurdist, but it works around the rather dark premise of a wandering guy who buys a trailer for $1 and then finds out it is a portal to hell and demons want to eat his soul. Soon he is being visited by demons in his bed, lost souls in his cabinets, and a bottomless refrigerator that won’t let him have a beer. Some of the sight gags are incredibly well done and very creepy, such as when Guy reaches toward a mirror showing the back of his own head, and his hand comes out of nowhere and grabs him. In many ways this webseries reminded me of the Evil Dead films, from the special effects to the yelling of the demons that they were going to “eat Guy’s soul.”

Guy is a great character for this type of horror comedy show. He is a bumbling loser who stumbles through the demon traps in his trailer and barely reacts to any of them. Most people would have been screaming and crying within the first few minutes of living in a portal to hell, but Guy just seems to take it in stride. When he falls into his bottomless fridge, all he worries about is losing one of his favorite shoes. Then later when his bed becomes a giant cave full of dead bodies, all that excites him is finding his lost shoe again. Even when Professor Klum, aka Ray Wise in a brilliant turn as a demon hunter with some homoerotic tendencies, shows up and explains everything, Guy seems to be less than impressed.

This is a nice little series that was funny and creepy and I had a good time watching it. I don’t know if the premise would carry over into anything longer, such as a half hour TV show or a feature film, but it is great in its little four-minute bursts.

HellHoles can be viewed at: http://www.atom.com.

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About Melissa: By day a mild-mannered tv station receptionist, by night a fighter of crime and corruption in the dirty streets of Spokane, WA . . . or maybe not so much. More like a hyperactive, anal-retentive daytime receptionist and a melodramatic, hyperactive nighttime fangirl who only wishes she could be a fighter of crime and champion of justice (except that would lead to getting my super costume all dirty and I hate doing laundry.) Though my intent has always been to write bestselling novels and live a life of wealth and luxury, putting my talents for snarkiness and word doodling together while letting my geek flag fly suits me just fine – for now.