This is by no means a straight forward 'yes I liked it' nor a 'that was pure crap'. The problem with The Hole is a problem which a lot of movies seem to have these days, but the opposite. The trailers for movies give away so much of the movie that generally it would be a lot easier to fill in the gaps that we see in the trailers rather than venture to the cinema on a saturday night. You see, the trailer for this movie seemed to go on for a long time and basically I thought I knew the premise of the movie and it seemed like it would be a very chilling, bad guy with a mask who no-one sees kills beautiful young people. This could not be much further from the truth.
It is, instead, a psychological nightmare vision of how far people can push things in the name of love. There is no demon down the hole instead there is a young girl who allows herself to be mentally distorted by a physical longing for a guy.
The writing is quite clearly lending a nod towards similarly structured movies as Rashomon whereupon there is an effort made to give the same story many different view points. A very brave effort which doesnt quite manage to work. This is in part due to the fact that a very promising opening set-up is cut very short, which is a great shame as it was looking to be a really good exploration of what people do in times of crisis. That appraoch is thrown away when the real truth of events comes to life. This gives a very shallow emotional depth to the film and when charcters begin to die there is no attachment, one and possibly even two of the depths are even very risible and the scope for really shocking psychology is over before you are even aware of it.
In attempt to make the audiences head spin as to what went wrong and who did what we are instead left there saying to ourselves, 'yep, i saw that coming'. It does all becoming very predictable and by the end you are applauding yourself and thinking you could have wrote this yourself. That isn't to say that the director doesn't give us our fair share of clench the seat moments. On top of that there is a really good performance from the ever improving Birch who displays a near perfect Toff's accent.
All this is undermined by the dramatic shaping and atmospheric qualities of the movie which in one last bid for cult status throws in an ending in the hope of people terming it this years sixth sense, and shocking the audience with its ingenuity, it doesn't work and makes you wonder whether or not the film has even ended when it has.
It is, instead, a psychological nightmare vision of how far people can push things in the name of love. There is no demon down the hole instead there is a young girl who allows herself to be mentally distorted by a physical longing for a guy.
The writing is quite clearly lending a nod towards similarly structured movies as Rashomon whereupon there is an effort made to give the same story many different view points. A very brave effort which doesnt quite manage to work. This is in part due to the fact that a very promising opening set-up is cut very short, which is a great shame as it was looking to be a really good exploration of what people do in times of crisis. That appraoch is thrown away when the real truth of events comes to life. This gives a very shallow emotional depth to the film and when charcters begin to die there is no attachment, one and possibly even two of the depths are even very risible and the scope for really shocking psychology is over before you are even aware of it.
In attempt to make the audiences head spin as to what went wrong and who did what we are instead left there saying to ourselves, 'yep, i saw that coming'. It does all becoming very predictable and by the end you are applauding yourself and thinking you could have wrote this yourself. That isn't to say that the director doesn't give us our fair share of clench the seat moments. On top of that there is a really good performance from the ever improving Birch who displays a near perfect Toff's accent.
All this is undermined by the dramatic shaping and atmospheric qualities of the movie which in one last bid for cult status throws in an ending in the hope of people terming it this years sixth sense, and shocking the audience with its ingenuity, it doesn't work and makes you wonder whether or not the film has even ended when it has.