Hell Hole: What happens to Teddy and the parasite in the end, explained

Hell Hole is the latest film from the filmmaking family known as The Adams Family, comprised of Toby Poser, John Adams, and their daughters Lulu and Zelda. While their daughters don't star alongside Toby and John in this one, Zelda Adams is credited as a co-writer on the screenplay. Toby and John shared director duties along with co-starring as the characters Emily and John.

Set in the Serbian wilderness, Hell Hole follows a fracking crew and some research scientists looking for the rare mammals known as Pika ("a glorified bunny rabbit," for all intents and purposes). But what they find instead is a long-dormant parasitic monster that soon rampages through the crew, looking for a new male host to use as an incubator. Yes, this new creature feature on Shudder uses mpreg as a dominant theme!

With the film now available to watch on Shudder, it's up to us viewers to analyze the somewhat ambiguous ending, which leaves the fate of several characters up to interpretation. Spoilers ahead.

Does Teddy get infected by the parasite in the end?

Hell Hole culminates in an intense climax featuring the parasite violently hopping from one of the remaining survivors to another until everyone is dead except for Emily, Teddy, and Sofija.

It turns out Nikola is quite the hypocrite. He was perfectly content to use other people as test subjects when the parasite was inhabiting them, but when it tries to enter him he freaks out and almost immediately dies, leaving the octopus-like creature to find a new incubator among the three remaining survivors.

The last we see of the monster, it's giving chase to Teddy and Sofija before cutting to a scene sometime in the future where the couple is in a bathroom, Teddy relaxing in a tub as Sofija somberly comforts him. Hell Hole doesn't explicitly say what happens to Teddy or the creature, but since we know it only incubates inside men, we can safely assume that it did, in fact, enter Teddy.

Earlier in the film, Teddy and Sofija bonded while sharing their ambitions for the future. Sofija reveals her parasitology studies, and Teddy says he'd love to be a father someday. Well...in a twisted way, they both got what they wanted. Teddy is now the "womb" to this formerly dormant cephalopod thing, and Sofija will get to study it and its host as it dwells inside him. If Teddy doesn't try to remove the parasite, he might even survive the ordeal and eventually "give birth" to it.

More evidence backing up this theory is the final frame showing a newspaper article blaming the other deaths on a "mysterious oil rig accident," meaning that none of the three survivors told anyone what really happened, allowing Teddy to escape with Sofija without government or scientific scrutiny. We don't see Em again, but we can assume she'll remain part of her nephew's life.

Hell Hole is now streaming on Shudder.