Living Hell | |
---|---|
Written by | Richard Jefferies |
Directed by | Richard Jefferies |
Starring |
Johnathon Schaech Erica Leerhsen James McDaniel |
Theme music composer | Ivan Koutikov |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
Production | |
Producer(s) | David S. Greathouse Deborah Del Prete Gigi Pritzker |
Cinematography | Eric Leach |
Editor(s) | Russell Denove |
Release | |
Original network | Sci Fi Channel |
Original release |
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Living Hell (aka Organizm - DVD title) is a 2008 horror television film written and directed by Richard Jefferies, which stars Johnathon Schaech and Erica Leerhsen. It premiered on Sci Fi Channel on February 23, and was released on DVD on June 10, 2008.
Budgeted at an estimated $4,500,000, the film was shot in only 29 days.
In 1969, ten-year-old Frank Sears is confronted by his hysterical mother Eleanore, who carves the message "S3 V12" into the palms of his hands with a pencil and warns him to never forget her warning before murdering her husband and committing suicide.
In the present, Frank (Johnathon Schaech) is now a biology teacher haunted by the night his mother died. Having tried to forget about her warnings, he conducted an internet search that led him to drive all the way from New Jersey to the town of Bennell, New Mexico in an attempt to visit the Army base Fort Lambert. After being turned away he is forced to break through the gates of the base and is detained, at which point he explains his story to Carrie Freeborn (Erica Leerhsen) and her wheelchair-bound husband Glenn (Jason Wiles): his mother once worked at the base and warned him that something terrible was stored there, in "Sublevel 3, Vault 12." The Freeborns find no evidence of Elenore Sears in their records, and their documents of the base's decontamination indicate that the vault was empty. However, on another check, they discover the back wall is hollow and immediately begin excavation against Frank's warnings. Inside is a sealed tank, and on the orders of Colonel Erik Maitland (James McDaniel) a quarantine is set up so the tank can be opened by Carrie's team, consisting of herself, Torbin Struss (Josh Berry), Gayle Osterloh (Liezl Carstens) and Aneta McQueen (Charissa Allen).
They discover a man's corpse with evidence of disease inside, but when Carrie attempts to biopsy the infected tissue, the infection comes alive in the form of giant, rapidly growing plantlike roots. Struss is immediately killed when he tries to bolt the tank closed, and the organism grows out of the room in moments. An evacuation is declared, but Glen, Osterloh and many other soldiers are killed. Carrie frees Frank and confronts him with images of the man in the tank, but he is unresponsive. The soldiers withdraw into Bennell to form a response, and Frank realizes that Carrie meant that the man in the tank was his real father.