The Hole

Truly, fresh and new ideas, rarely make it to film. The Hole, based on the novel (after the Hole) by Guy Burt is a good exception to this. It is seldom that we see a top quality thriller, but this movie is well cast, well directed, and works wonderfully. The story is quite simple really, it relies on strong characterisation and good dialogue. All the cast give good performances and Thora Birch is outstanding. This thriller really does keep you on the edge of your seat throughout; it is very dark, very creepy and has a terrifying atmosphere. I would recommend this film to anyone who likes a good thriller. It isn't in the same league as Se7en and Silence of the Lambs, but it is better than most thrillers that are released.

8/10 A great film.

The first trailer for this film showed to be a gruelling film about humans trapped in a dark, confined space, slowly withering away. The second trailer pitched this movie as some sort of repellent formulaic teen horror film. It was the first trailer that had been touted since last autumn in the UK that intrigued me enough to see it.

Having watched the film I was disappointed as the film failed to deliver what had been promised in either trailer. What I saw was a bland movie that seemingly doesn't know what it's target demographic is. I am assuming that it wanted to be a psychological horror, but the film is so lightweight that it appears to have been written with twelve-year-olds in mind – which isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, the film is visually aimed at adults, with sex, full frontal nudity, nasty violence and drug use. Thus the film is torn between the two camps; the writing is too simple for adults but the adult material will stop kids seeing it.

Essentially the story is that these toffs at a private boarding school in England would rather spend three days in an old underground World War Two bunker (the titular ‘Hole') than go to Wales on a school trip. Everything is engineered so that the school assumes that they have gone home for the duration whilst their parents think that they have actually gone to Wales. In other words, nobody knows where they are there. Ultimately the events unfold and they end up stuck in the Hole and proceed to go stir crazy.

My biggest hang up is the presence of Thora Birch. Firstly her twee English accent is all over the place. They should have just let her speak with her natural accent, as it would have been less of a distraction. Maybe as an Englishman this is a stick that I can unfairly beat her with and perhaps overseas no one will notice, but for me it was an unwelcome distraction (especially when there are many young British actresses who would've done a better job).

Secondly she brings NOTHING to the movie. The other members of the young cast are relative unknowns and act her off the screen. They all give believable reputations of stuck up self-centred kids and the effects of human physical and mental degradation. I assume that Ms. Birch was brought in to add ‘international appeal' but she stifles and flounders around with her leading role, unable to rise to the challenge of her co-stars.

Before you all assume that I'm bashing her because she's American think again because young American actor Desmond Harrington who plays Mike Steel, is the best thing about this movie.

I had high hopes for 'The Hole' being a fan of this kind of "head trip" mystery (when done well!), and also because Thora Birch shows lots of potential. Unfortunately Birch is nothing special here and she is the ONLY good thing about this disappointing missfire. The plot features so many holes and ludicrous moments that you quickly lose interest, especially after the main plot twist will take you all of ten minutes to guess. You vainly hope that the obvious way the movie is heading is a red herring and will be cleverly subverted, but it isn't. Anyone who has seen a decent amount of mystery thrillers over the years will find this one to be the same old, same old. On top of that the four main characters are all unsympathetic and so cliched that you frankly won't give a damn what happens to any of them, and that is a fatal flaw in this kind of movie. Don't bother with this one.

I have never liked either of the two main actresses, and I'd never seen the dark haired actor "Mike as a young actor but I'd seen him in a few films as an adult, and liked his acting and he didn't disappoint in this film either.

The main actress, Birch is it, obviously is a great actor, from the young age, because I had disliked the character from the start.

Great acting by all, including the psychiatrist.

These kind of tales always frustrates me! I like the endings to be Done! Finished! Not leave you frustrated.

I'D RATHER YOU DIDN'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY SEEN IT, JUST IN CASE I SPOIL IT FOR YOU!

When Liz staggers, tattered, shocked and disturbed in a blood stained coat through the halls of residence in an exclusive British boarding school in the opening scene of the film, which has thus far been intense and atmospheric, I begin thinking - "This is promising." But then, and I don't wish to be known as a pedant or anything, she stumbles up to a British telephone in her British boarding school and calls the British emergency services, saying, in a British falsetto...

"Nine... one... one."

WHAT?????????????

911? The most basic and fundamental of research errors, the number for the police, has been overlooked.

I know I am watching an American film. Ever since I first saw her in American Beauty (in which she managed to hold her own against Spacey and Boening beautifully. I have found a brilliant allure about her. I so wanted to like this film. And I did. I would have liked it more if it had been a little more culturally sensitive.

All American-Britons in the film had flawless British accents - but that's just it - a regional dialect here and a glottal stop there would have been far more believable.

The concept itself is brilliant - a tale of adolescent obsession and peer pressure leading to insanity and homicide. And there are moments in the film that are genuinely disturbing, for example when we see Liz beside her vomiting best friend, ignoring her totally, preferring to obsess about Mike - her teenage fantasy incarnate.

Technically, the film is superb, and fragmented fast shots of the bodies and effective lighting and mise-en-scene in the Hole itself are brilliant, but everything set in the present is fairly terrible, mostly due to dubious acting and underdeveloped script work. The contrived atmosphere of the first fifty minutes is representative of Liz's tale itself - false, and when we do see the account as it happened, it is shocking and tense (although the cheesy funeral scene is fairly diabolical).

The biggest problem around the film is the fact that the characters, even Liz, are underdeveloped and the script and issues (eg that of identity, ie belonging - "The be popular at (name of high school), you have to be either..." said by both Martin and Liz) are too. Her obession is a fantastic premise for a film and its context in the hole is excellent but then it is damaged by a throw away attitude to making decent psychological thrillers - in this case, the teen horror genre was too much of an influence (although the grissly death scenes were very effective).

An excellent idea, but seriously underdeveloped, especially when placed in a market with peers such as Cube, with a lower budget and totally unknown actors (I'm sorry, Thora, I'm sorry!!)which manages to be shocking, timeless and tense.

Watch it, it's good. But note that its potential was done poorly by using American actors to create a pseudo-Britain, and "American-England," and the sometimes unbelievable dialogue.