Hellhole Ending Explained: What Happened To The Missing Girls? What Happens to Marek?
As we will see in this Hellhole, the film directed by the Polish Bartosz M. Kowalski recently arrived on the platform. During the so-called spooky season, i.e. the period before Halloween, streaming platforms are enriched with horror titles, a genre that at this time of the year also attracts those audiences that tend not to approach it. Netflix is taking advantage of the renewed appreciation for on-screen horror, distributing films from around the world that would otherwise get lost in the vastness of an ever-expanding catalogue.
Now it’s the turn of indie terror, very fashionable these days. Hellhole, directed by Bartosz M. Kowalski, in the style of The Witch, reviews the basic arguments of good and evil to show us exorcism, seedy abbeys, crazy parents and satanic sects. Here the issue is not the originality of the plot but the use of tropes so that the viewer has a good time with recognized elements within the genre. Now, it is true that the film is not round and once we recognize the path, it becomes predictable. Therefore, it must be understood that the key here is how they present that long-awaited element in classic horror works: the Devil. In the following lines, we will then explain everything that happens so that this expected ending happens. We will do spoilers.
Hellhole: Plot Summary
The film opens in Poland in the fifties, a priest enters a church out of breath: with him, he has a newborn marked by a strange birthmark on his chest. The man’s intentions are immediately clear: he wants to kill the child on the altar of that sacred place, asking forgiveness for his sins but invoking a greater good. He will be stopped a few seconds before carrying out the deed and shot to death by the police who raid. The story then takes a step forward, transporting us thirty years after what happened in the incipit: Marek (Piotr Zurawski) is a new priest who enters the ranks of a large and sinister convent, which also serves as a sanatorium for the sick mental area.
There the monks, in addition to trying to cure their patients, perform exorcisms on those who in their opinion are possessed by the devil. Practices and rituals that the newcomer is forced to attend immediately. Soon, however, we discover that Marek is not a man of faith: he is an undercover policeman who must investigate the disappearance of some local young girls, girls who had been brought to the convent on suspicion of possession. Nothing more has been heard of them and Marek must find out what happened to them.
It will not take long for the man to realize that there is something very strange in the monastery, and he will begin to be haunted by disturbing visions. The moments of the meals are those that for Marek is the most upsetting and disgusting: the slop that is served to him is nauseating and smelly, but he forces himself to eat it so as not to arouse suspicion. What is hiding in the dark corridors of this supposedly sacred place? One of the monks, Piotr, is willing to reveal something to him, but he seems very scared of what others might do to him…
Hellhole Ending Explained: Who Is Marek?
The film begins in 1957. A priest tries to kill a child whom he calls “Seed of Evil“. The police prevent him from stabbing him with a dagger. This little guy has a scar on the left side of his chest, the same one Marek has. He is, therefore, the survivor of a religious attack. What we don’t know, at first, is whether Marek is indeed a victim or heir to evil. We will have the answer at the end of the tape.
What Happened To The Missing Girls?
Marek has been wary of church food from the start, and he’s not the only one. Not only the origin is suspicious, but the texture and colour are. After different scenes in which it is clear that this sanatorium is a place used to obtain money from the Vatican, using exorcisms as an excuse, the policeman discovers the origin of the food. In the kitchen, and the fridge is the dismembered bodies of women who disappeared after religious rituals. So in effect, the parents practiced cannibalism. However, from the effects the food has on Father Marek, it’s pretty obvious that this meat has another purpose.
The object that the policeman finds in his bedroom, the eye with bones, does it exist? Because after getting rid of him, she vomits a black substance from his mouth. Flies come out of the liquid. Later, Marek sees his face covered by that same substance, as if it were a hallucination. The reality is that “Hellhole” always plays with a struggle between reason and the fantasy element. What is true and what is not? How much of what happens to Marek is conditioned by circumstances and how much is part of a diabolical pact? The flipping crucifixes, the black liquid, the flies, do they mean the devil is present? All this has an answer in the last stretch of production.
The Chosen One
Father Andrzej explained that they were the ones who had provided the police with the anonymous tip about the missing woman to lure Marek out because he was The Chosen One. According to the book on which the whole ritual is based, the chosen one was born during an eclipse and had to be killed with a dagger right after. However, if he were to live, he must consume seven sinners and drink the blood of one innocent. This is the last thing Marek does, reluctantly, after a virgin woman’s throat is slit.
Likewise, from the mouths of the parents, we learned that this sect does not consider the Devil to be evil, but the humans, who deserved to be punished. He believes that he can live with God in the same space. For this reason, the church/sanatorium was built around the gate of hell (the pit where Marek is thrown), and for 800 years, the brotherhood had been waiting for the birth of the chosen one. In short, the sect hopes that the Devil will incarnate in the body of the chosen one (Marek) and start a new order on Earth. Thus, the priests would be the apostles of the Evil One and would help him direct the “new” world. However, as we see at the end, all the paraphernalia to summon it does not work as expected.
In that final stretch, what we all suspected is discovered: the monk Piotr (Sebastian Stankiewicz) is the true villain behind the throne. He is the one who kills Father Andrzej, probably because the rite to summon Satan doesn’t work out of the blue and he is the one who deceives Marek, posing as a victim of the institution. Piotr is convinced that by following the steps that a book dictates, Marek will become the Devil himself. For this reason, he gains the trust of the policeman, even leading him to his death. Once the rite did not achieve the result, he tries to disappear all the evidence and continue with the institution, but now as a leader, perhaps with the idea of continuing to study old texts to invoke the evil presence at some point.
Once Father Andrzej’s body is taken away and Marek was thrown into the pit to no avail, the cross in the Prior’s room is inverted, indicating the Devil’s presence. At the same time, Marek “awakens” from death and something seems to take hold of him. His body begins to transform. The next day, during the morning service, Piotr seems possessed. He chokes, levitates, the skull opens, and thousands of flies come out of that body. A short time passes, and Baphomet, the anthropomorphic deity who represents evil, enters the church.
The priests cannot flee, they are suspended in the air and represent the inverted crucifixes that we had seen throughout the film. At the same time, the dead flowers are reborn. What does this mean? That the dead come back to life and vice versa. Somehow the summoning of the Devil worked, but the consequences were not as expected. The sky opens and thunder rumbles: the Earth has become hell and the new world order has begun without the sect being part of it.
