Seen: May 27th, 2007
Format: Broadcast (HDNMV-HDNet Movies)
Rating: 5
This film was an experiment. Experimenting is good, but not all experiments turn out well. That's the price of progress.
While The Hole isn't a stunning success, it's not a complete failure anyway. Learn and move on.
Basically the experiment is mashing up Psychological Thriller with Teen Horror Film It's been tried a few times before, but this time round the whole thing is doused liberally with Roshamon, just to make sure we have no idea what happened.
It all starts out well. It even seems to be interesting and a bit creepy, but then we're thrown for the first loop and it all becomes a bit pedestrian and predictable. Once we're here, it really doesn't surprise us all that much. The trappings are there, but we're as befuddled as the authorities as to what really happend. Worse, as things wear on, we really don't care, we'll believe any resolution as long as it advances the story.
All in, I'd say that the whole thing would have been better off just following the starting premise.
What else to say? I feel badly for Embeth Davidtz here. She's working hard but has little to go on. Thora Birch is good, and plays the changes reasonably well, though ultimately I had some trouble reconciling her character. Daniel Brocklebank does the best job here, playing the varities of his character fairly well. Keira Knightly is at best average in this early role.
All in all, The Hole is OK. There's enough here to keep you interested, but not really anything to take away.
The Good: Creepy premise
The Bad: Rashomon this ain't
The Ugly: Watching your friends die
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