Main cast: Piotr Zurawski (Marek), Olaf Lubaszenko (Prior Andrzej), Sebastian Stankiewicz (Piotr), Lech Dyblik (Antoni), and Rafał Iwaniuk (Dawid)
Director: Bartosz M Kowalski

Ostantnia wieczerza, or Hellhole in the English market, is a movie about exorcism and other shenanigan taking place in a sanatorium run by a church for people allegedly possessed by the forces of Hell. Led by Prior Andrzej, the monks conduct “treatments” that would make most people go, “Are we sure they weren’t the Devil themselves?”

Into the scene is Father Marek, supposedly an exorcist that has just joined the monks. In truth, he’s undercover to discover what happened to a woman that is reported to be missing.

Also, as a baby, he was almost killed by a priest, who called him the spawn of the devil, until the priest was shot by the cops just in time. Gee, I wonder if this would be relevant to the overarching plot as Marek starts to look into how these people operate and discover that there is something really sinister about these monks. Perhaps they may not even be what they claim to be, oh dear.

I have to laugh when Marek is the only one among the characters here that sports a gorgeous beard and doesn’t look like Friar Tuck. Now that’s one way to make the lead character stand out to people that aren’t paying attention!

Alas, I also happen to watch the English-dubbed version of this show on streaming, and this is unfortunate because it sounds like one same guy provided the English voices of all the characters here. The guy that does the dub did a pretty good job here, although he can get tad melodramatic at times, but the sameness of every main character’s voice can be very distracting.

This movie isn’t a scare-a-minute affair by the way. It’s more of a slow burn, with the movie taking its time to build up the creepy tension and atmosphere. Despite the occasional dip into over the top moments, the overall result is a nice kind of psychological horror as Marek slowly discovers that these people are hiding a gruesome secret.

It’s also nice that this movie doesn’t rely on cheap jump scares, stupid people walking slow motion in dark corners for no reason, and other nonsense typical of US horror films these days. There is something organic, visceral, even terrifying in how the movie slowly creeps toward the denouement.,.

… Only to make me laugh like a loon because the movie mutates into a cartoon in its last 15 or so minutes. I don’t know what happened, but the special effects take a turn into the original early Resident Evil or Silent Hill video game graphic realness territory.

Showing that… thing… is really a mistake as it complete undermines any serious chills I had experienced up to that point and makes everything goofy. The thing is, the movie could have easily avoided this by just not showing it. Just show the monks’ expression—that may even be scarier as I have to use my imagination, and my imagination can easily supply anything that is more terrifying to look at that the thing that ends up on the screen.

Anyway, this one is a pretty solid film all the way until it goes all clown school on me toward the end. The pay-off is pretty crap, in other words, so I’m not sure if I should recommend this film to anyone. At least, not without a warning to not keep their expectations high or they’d be disappointed by the time this thing ends!

The post Ostatnia wieczerza (2022) first appeared on HOT SAUCE REVIEWS.