Hell (2011)

Trailer: 

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: Germans run afoul of the sun.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

DAS STUDIO Torsten Hegner GmbH – PDF_X3_Certified_DS

• Well at least I get to read subtitles again.
• Right off the bat the title graphic is “Hell” but the subtitle is “Bright,” which you’ll recall is a well-beloved collaboration between Will Smith and Max Landis, whose father murdered Vic Morrow and two children.
• Is Hell this family of three being in a car together? If so, I’ve seen it.
• The last German movie I reviewed was Killer Condom, so this has a lot to live up to.
• I guess the premise is that the sun is like really blazing these days, which as a very pasty Caucasian redhead is the most frightening scenario I can think of.
• If the sun’s this strong wouldn’t they be baking in this car? Doesn’t really seem like they’re even sweating.
• Maybe everyone just gets skin cancer and that’s it.
• I hope the cause of this is that the Coppertone corporation destroyed the ozone layer so people would have to buy more sunscreen.
• So this family is two sisters (Marie and Leo) and some dude who I guess is Marie’s boyfriend (Phillip), and they seem to be the three most boring survivors of the apocalypse imaginable.
• Guess what, everyone’s after water and gas. We’re breaking new ground here this month.
• Is “99 Luftballons” the only song to ever come of of Germany?
• I’m kind of confused when these people look directly outside into the sunlight and don’t even wince at all. It seems like you’re fucking up your basic premise already.

• Please don’t tell me this drifter and this teenage girl are going to fall in love. That’s not good even by German standards.
• I wonder if I’m going to get to 500 words in this review. Not much is happening, and it seems like this could have been a 12-minute short film. Maybe 8 minutes. I’m sure at some point the group will run afoul of some bad people, but will that be interesting? Doubtful.
• I’m no astromogologiest, but it seems that if the sun is so much stronger, the moonlight would be as well, so werewolves are going to have a god damn field day here. I really hope there are werewolves in this.
• Also, you’d think everyone would have red blistered skin, but they all look like pretty normal white people.

• And Leo gets kidnapped by bad dudes. I don’t know if it’s because this is the 86th movie in a row I’ve watched with this situation, but I couldn’t be more bored.
• Anytime I had a problem and I threw a Molotov cocktail, BOOM! Right away, I had a different problem.
• As a sunscreen connoisseur, I really like the Sun Bum brand, especially the face gel, which works great and is also clear so you don’t look like a slightly purple ghost mannequin.Their daily lotion is good too, not sticky and gets the job done. And their spray is also not as sticky, because some brands make you feel like you’re been rolling around on the floor of a movie theater that shows semen-inducing pornos. So two big pasty thumbs up for me. And that’s my boredom rant for this movie.
• Here’s Marie walking around in the daytime with no sunglasses. I’m just going to assume the whole sun thing really isn’t that bad then.

• Marie finds her way to a farm that has survivors and talks to a woman and it seems like they know each other, but then they introduce each other. I don’t know. I’m sure these people will turn out to be cannibals or something.
• Oh I guess these are the dudes who took Leo. Who cares.
• Yeah they’re cannibals. Who could’ve seen that coming.
• Oh but Marie and Leo will be used for breeding, not food. This all seems like a good deal, actually. Better than driving around in a hot car all the time.
• This dinner scene is like the most boring possible retelling of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
• Oh no they killed Phillip not Phillip oh no.
• So the main cannibal woman gave Marie a dress, she changed into it after she made a clothes rope for Leo to escape, they catch Marie and throw her in a room tied up, but now she’s not wearing the dress, just a tank top. Why did they change her out of the dress? It’s like they just tacked on that dinner scene with her in the dress afterward.
• Cool leave the tied up hostage alone in a room with stuff she can cut her bonds with. These cannibals are dumm.
• Marie frees the food slaves and they run out into the sun, which again isn’t that big of a problem, more like a bright nuisance.
• I guess guns stopped working in this world?
• So Marie kills the old lady and they split. What a showdown.
• Now I guess they’ll just live in this wet cave with the birds. What an exciting journey.

What year?!: “The near future,” so like November I guess.

Who are the Enemies?: The sun, as always; cannibals.

What Happened to the Earth?: The sun got too hot to handle, too cold to hold.

Final Thoughts: This isn’t actually a horrible shitshow or anything, but it’s more boring than a tunnel from Berlin to New Zealand. The characters are dull, nothing interesting happens, and what does happen is nothing you haven’t seen a hundred times before. The whole premise of the sun being super strong really barely has anything to do with jack shit. People are just out looking for water and gas just like every other post-nuke post-disease etc. scenario. Even if you watched this outside on your roof in the middle of the day of the summer solstice you will still fall asleep. Recommended for Nena fanatics, bronze goddesses, wet bandits, and sundress makers.

Score: 2.5 Hours Staring Into the Sun (out of 10)