Product Details

• Actors: Stipe Erceg, Michael Kranz, Hannah Herzsprung
• Directors: Tim Fehlbaum
• Format: Color, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Arc Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: August 21, 2012
• Run Time: 84 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0084NZERE
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #107,336 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

It was once the source of life, light and warmth. But now the sun has turned the entire world into baked and barren wasteland. Forests are scorched. Animal carcasses line the roads. Even the nights are dazzling bright. Marie, her little sister Leonie and Phillip are heading for the mountains in a car with covered windows. Rumor has it there is still water there. Along the way they run into Tom, a first-rate mechanic that becomes indispensible. But can they trust him? Tension grows in the small group. As if things weren´t bad enough, they are lured into an ambush. Their real battle for survival begins...

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent, If Not Great, Post-Apocalyptic Thriller September 26, 2012

By Tsuyoshi TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:DVD

The year is 2016. Because of the increasing solar activity, the earth's temperature has become higher by 10 degrees Celsius. The land has dried up and crops have perished. Modern civilization has collapsed and the earth has become an uninhabitable place for humans. Few survivors keep travelling under the scorching sun, looking for water. Two young sisters Marie and Leonie are among them, travelling with a man named Phillip driving around in a dust-covered car.

Executive-produced by Roland Emmerich ("Independence Day" and "2012"), the low-budget post-apocalyptic thriller begins with an interesting premise, but without developing the sci-fi theme, "Hell" quickly shifts into a familiar formula about the travelers and their predicaments in the backwoods. In short, you have seen this in "The Road" or other horror films.

Tim Fehlbaum's direction is slick once action gets started, but details of this catastrophic disaster remain vague at best. The cinematography of the bleak landscape soaked in overflowing light is impressive enough to live up with the film's double-meaning title ("Hell" means in German "bright"), but the effects of the sunshine such as heat and UV exposure are not fully made use of to enhance the film's drama and suspense .

But the real problem of "Hell" is that the characters are not really interesting, including the sisters Marie and Leonie. Why are they travelling alone? Why does she have a CD of Nena's "99 Luftballons"? The film wastes every chance to flesh them out. When the two male characters are less memorable, why should we care? "Zombieland" did it much better.

This is not to say "Hell" is a terrible film, but as a survival thriller or a H.G. Wells-like modern-day fable "Hell" leaves much to be desired, lacking its own voice.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great post-apocalyptic story September 26, 2012

By Giselle C. Tesouro

Format:DVD

With no opportunities to rent this film, besides iTunes, I decided to purchase the film on the strength of the trailer. These days I seem to be a good judge of what I will like based on a trailer.

Hell is a post-apocalyptic film set in the near future 2016. Solar flares have caused mass overheating of our planet laying waste to the environment. With no way to sustain plant or animal life and with natural water supplies all but gone; people will now do anything to survive.

Visually the movie sells the idea the earth is burnt out and desolate. The acting is good, albeit this american version defaults to an over-dubbed english soundtrack. I suggest watching it with subtitles.
For a film like this simplicity is important. All our characters need to do is survive. There are a few little twists and turns that keep it interesting.
Overall a fan of films like this will be more than entertained. And I'm happy to add this film to my collection.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Don't go in expecting a timeless piece of cinema and you'll have a good time with it. March 20, 2013

By Robert P. Beveridge HALL OF FAMEVINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

Hell (Bright) (Tim Fehlbaum, 2011)

Hell reminded me a great deal of another, even lower-budget, German film for no real reason I can put my finger on, Jens Wolf's Noctem. While this one has more plot, better acting, and an even bleaker outlook on life, while I was watching it, my mind kept stealing back to Wolf's 2003 effort, which I found quite good given its lack of professional talent both in front of and behind the camera; "a labor of love" is, at least when I use it, often a synonym for "unrepentantly amateur", but Wolf transcended that and came up with something, if not deathless, quite watchable and a good deal of fun. I got that same vibe from Fehlbaum (Nicht Meine Hochzeit)'s second feature, though I rush to add that with both of these films I'm using the word "fun" in a rather loose sense.

Fehlbaum's movie gives us a makeshift family--Tom (Unknown's Stipe Erceg), Marie (The Reader's Hannah Herzsprung), and Leonie (Hanni and Nanni's Lisa Vicari)--living in a post-apocalyptic world where the Earth is moving, ever so slowly, closer to the sun. Being outside without being fully covered is almost instant death. There is no darkness, as we know it, just periods of less light. Tom and co. are making do the way most survivors in this world presumably do--a nomadic existence in a station wagon that contains their earthly possessions, raiding abandoned gas stations for fuel, trying to get to a fabled compound in the mountains where, supposedly, they can settle down. The film's first confrontation comes at an abandoned fuel station, where another drifter, Phillip (Home for the Weekend's Lars Eidinger), attempts to make off with some of their stuff, and instead ends up coming along for the ride. But that's a minor inconvenience compared to what happens when they finally make it to the mountains and find out that yes, the compound does exist--but that they're not taking new applicants...

It's an interesting genre thriller that has pretensions at being more than it is. This is not at all a bad thing, and Fehlbaum, who also co-wrote with longtime partner Oliver Kahl and Anatomy scribe Thomas Wöbke, is to be commended for his ambition. That the movie ultimately fails in those pretensions takes nothing away from its status as a good, solid genre thriller once the core characters get into the mountains and the game of cat-and-mouse begins; if you decide to pop this one into the DVD player, you'll get an entertaining piece of cinema, though little more than that. But oftentimes that's all you need. ***