El bosque maldito

There are good and bad things about The Hole In The Ground. The good things are the acting as all actors were very believable in their roles, the dark atmosphere due to an excellent soundtrack and good cinematography, and the necessary suspense and scary moments for a horror movie. The bad things would be the feeling that this story is just unfinished and the lack of explanation of what is really going on and let that be the major letdown of this movie. It could have been much better if the story wasn't that undevelopped and that's just a pity because it had potential.

A creepy little Irish horror movie this one was. If you like the A24 horror movies, especially the one 'It Comes at Night', it's safe to say you will enjoy 'The Hole in the Ground'. Good performances and very well done acting by the young man who plays the son. The movie definitely manages to create a nice eerie atmosphere to go with the setting and there are a few scenes in this that gave me a good fright. Try and seek this one out and watch it if you are in the mood for suspenseful slow burn horror. 7.5/10

Movies involving evil or mean children often manage to creep us out the most for some reason. The Hole in the Ground is no exception. It's a small Irish production with only a few characters, but it manages to pull off a very chilling atmosphere of dread, after a mother and her son moves into their new house in a deserted area on the edge of a large dense forest. The movie really manages to make you feel their sense of loneliness as the mother stumbles upon a mysterious huge hole in the middle of the forest behind their house. Her boy begins to acts strange after he runs away one night in the forest, and she starts questioning his identity and also, her sanity. The actress playing the mother is very good at displaying her mixed emotions and the boy really conveys a feeling of unpleasantness. This coupled with the creepy atmosphere really pulls you in. It's more of a drama-psychological horror and not everyone will appreciate the slow and subtle tone of the movie, but if you enjoyed smart horror like Under the Shadow and Goodnight Mommy, then I think you will like this. It's not quite as good and it unfortunately lacks a little bit of explanation at the end, but sometimes I think it's okay for movie to leave a bit up to the viewers to figure out by themselves. I just wish it ran maybe 10 minutes longer to better develop the events leading to the conclusion.

The first hour of this film is creepy, well photographed, and reasonably subtle, if quite predictable if you've seen this sort of movie before. Despite the predictability it has the former assets.

Unfortunately, 1 hour and 4 minutes in, the scriptwriter abandons these assets. He could have gone in one of two directions. One would have maintained the creepiness and perhaps done something more clever, the other, which he chose, is an in-your-face pedestrian affair. I don't want to drop any spoilers so I won't mention what movie they essentially adopt for the climactic moments, but if you've seen a lot of horror movies you will recognize it instantly.

I have to mention another pet peeve. Among its other deficiencies, Hole in the Ground employs a tired old horror trope which, along with the jump-scare, should be banned from movies from here to the end of time. It's those moments where something creepy or horrifying is happening and, oh never mind, it was just a nightmare and we find the protagonist waking up in bed. Why screenwriters continue to think that this tactic is clever or effective is beyond me. It's a tired cliche and simply bad writing.

Very atmospheric horror film with sharp, artistic editing. Decent overall acting. Creepy contortions, some jump scares.

Perhaps there is not much groundbreaking or unexpected, but not much glaring to criticize either. Except for some loose ends, some threads that intrigued but never went anywhere (the father? The other little boy?). And one climatic scene that was hard to see (literally in a pitch black cave) what was going on so i felt a bit lost, and the scene lasted a while.

While this horror film is fairly obvious and familiar, despite being in Ireland, I still found myself immersed and a bit creeped out. I wish the climax was stronger and pulled all the threads together. The ending subsequently lost impact but was not bad.