The Hole (2009)

 

 

 

Netflix Synopsis:  In the basement of their new home, young brothers Dane and Lucas discover a mysterious trap door. With their neighbor, Julie, the boys pry open the ominous barrier and find a bottomless hole, which leads them to excruciating pain and misery.

 

My Synopsis:  Dane and Lucas move into a new home where they discover a door in the floor of their basement that opens up to a huge, black, bottomless abyss.  With their cute neighbor, Julie, the three are soon forced to fend off a melee of demons that emerge from the abyss and start wreaking imaginary and real havoc in their nice new home.  I wouldn't say there's a lot of excruciating pain and misery, though.  That feels a little tacked on.

 

The Peeps:  Joe Dante (director); Mark L. Smith (writer); Chris Massoglia, Nathan Gamble, and Haley Bennet 

 

Quick Run Down:  Cookie Cutter, Entertaining but Easily Forgettable 

 

Worth the Watch?:  If you have kids under or around 13, Yes.  Otherwise, No.

 

In The Hole, Dane and Lucas are brothers and, of course, they don't get along.  They have just moved into a new house in Small Town, NorthEast US, and Dane is pissed about it while Lucas (the younger brother) isn't old enough to get the full effect of the move like his bro has.  In the new house, the two - while fighting, of course - stumble onto a door in the floor of the basement, and the two decide to open it.  Underneath is nothing but a huge, bottomless, densely black abyss.  WTF, right?  Well, in the meantime, the cute next door neighbor that Dane digs but can't summon the courage to strike a conversation with has been talking to Lucas, and she pops by.  "What's this big ass hole in the floor?"  "Don't know."  And so the film unfolds - things from the Hole crawl out and go bump in the night, until the three are forced to face the demons without adult supervision or intervention. 

 

(Sigh)... If you can read the disdain in my voice above, sorry.  I just really don't like PG-13 horror movies.  It isn't a horror movie if it's PG-13.  It's a kid's movie designed to scare them.  Poltergeist and The Exorcist are R for a reason.  The Hole is PG-13 for a reason - kids.  Don't get me wrong - these films play their part.  And Joe Dante, The Hole's helmsmann, gave us Gremlins (rated PG!) which is a great family movie that snuck in a scare premise.  Movies like The Hole, though, always feel like they don't have a real place in any genre.  They're mostly just cash cows, so they kinda get on my nerves. 

 

The Hole is exactly what you would expect it to be.  Darkly shot to try and convince that it is scary than it actually is, the movie does nothing original and does not take any risks.  Personally, I love Dante and I think his heart was in the right place for this film, but it is so routine that it just falls flat.  The acting is pretty bad, both Massoglia (Dane) and Bennet (Julie) taking the Kirsten Stewart 'don't act' approach to acting and Nathan Gamble (Lucas) just not really having the chops to carry off the timing and inflection needed to make the mostly rote dialogue work for him.  There are a few tense moments that revolve around a doll and some more that revolve around a ghost girl, but they tend to be over about as soon as they begin.  I enjoyed the film, but, overall, I can't get past it's cookie cutter, easily forgettable quality.  All that being said, though, for a kid, this is a pretty cool flick.  They don't make movies like this anymore.  Brothers learning to love each other again through battling something bigger than them both.  There's even a certain moral theme prevalent through the film (that eventually one of the characters just TELLS us!), and that's uncommon nowadays.  It's no Gremlins or Small Soldiers for entertainment comparisons, but Dante's The Hole is a good movie for kids that teaches them that Fear is only as big as you let it be.  And it has a heavily CGI'ed ending that's fun and interesting.

 

So, if you've got kids verging adolescence, and you wanna sit down and watch a movie with them, hit the play button on The Hole.  Otherwise, I'd say skip it; you've seen it before.  If you wanna tell me, "Be damned, ye foul smelling Soul," and watch it anyway, go for it.  It's on Netflix!

And would you pass the damn trailer?!*

 

"Don't worry - You'll smell it in a second."







 * Alright - after watching the trailer again, the movie is pretty entertaining, if not fun at times.  Still, I have to stick to my original 'diagnosis'.