Watch The Hole For Free

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Overrated

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Finding a seemingly infinite hole in the basement of their new home. Two brothers and the girl next door soon find their fears start coming to life. Not a particularly original concept, playing with fears either conscious or not but always a good opportunity for some inventive scares. I believe this was Joe Dante's 'comeback' after a few years in a directing Haitus. At the time I remember being interested, along with John Carpenters 'the ward' which was his first feature in a decade. The Ward I watched with unspectacular results. The hole doesn't make a promising start as we are introduced to the two stiff lead brothers, they crawl into their role eventually but are largely unemotive (is that a word?). It's the introduction early on to Haley Bennet who plays the girl next door that really lights up the film. She is the star, and does an amazing job with some of the more drub dialog. She is the key for making the relationships believable. Bruce Dern gets five minutes to chew the scenery, which is an added bonus. The hole (in 3D, which I forget about and counts for some of the bad visuals) gets straight on with the horror, the horror is family friendly and really does play to its target audience. Age old fears are played with - toy clowns, what's under the bed etc. Nothing new for anyone with even a vague knowledge of the genre. There are effective scares here as Dante plays with an unnerving tone, there is an over reliance on score but it doesn't bother too much. There are some outrages character decisions as the tale becomes more fantasy than horror. You really just have to skip over that. In the end The Hole is an entertaining teen horror, the fast pace is ideal to cover plot holes and it's never dull if all a little predictable.

I can't believe I actually sat through this entire movie. What a total waste of time. I think it's the first horror I've ever seen that manages to be both completely boring, while simultaneously constructed almost entirely out of horror movie clichés: small town, check. Dysfunctional family moves into new home, check. Snotty kids, check. Distracted single mother, check. Precocious perky next-door teen girl, check. Creepy little dead girl, check. Creepy evil animated doll, check. Creepy old guy who knows too much, check. Complete failure to act intelligently around supernatural threat, check. About the only thing the film makers didn't use was the screaming cat trope. That's probably the only shock of the entire movie.Best moment of the movie: when Dane accidentally backs into Julie's boobs, and there's a resounding metallic CLANG on the soundtrack.Worst moment: most of the rest of the film could qualify, but probably the worst worst was the entirely flat performances in monotone voices from the cast during the climactic scenes. Oh, and Bruce Dern - who is less than Oscar material at his best - gets a Special Mention for the single worst performance of his career. Give it up, Bruce. It's time to retire, because you're just embarrassing yourself now.The direction was dull, the story trite and boring, the script poorly written with some truly atrocious dialogue, the music was awful, the performances from the entire cast were poor. The cinematography was undistinguished. The special effects weren't the worst part of the whole movie, which doesn't say much.If you're twelve and your parents don't mind you watching scary stuff, you might not find this a complete waste of time. If you're not twelve and you have a brain, you can do far better.

In the televersion of Stephen king's IT, we find that Pennywise the Clown (very well played by Tim Curry) is able to tap into and make manifest the deepest and darkest of childhood fears. It wasn't all that original an idea back then, and it's even less so after all these years- yet that's the gist of THE HOLE. This is Horror Light at its worst. There's not a single character worth investing in in this movie: all of the Child Actors come across as Child Actors as they recite some of the BLANDEST, most uninteresting lines ever spoken- and the kid called "Smooch" was the worst of the bunch. Bruce Dern (who was completely forgettable in another recent misfire, NEBRASKA) is just going through the motions in a bit part. The production values are impressive, indeed, but that's not enough to make this one worth the time it takes to get through it. Dante can do better.

I saw a short trailer for this film when it was released in cinemas, and then I saw the DVD cover in the stores, I assumed it was a family film of some kind, and I was willing to try it, from director Joe Dante (The Howling, Gremlins, Small Soldiers). Basically the Thompson brothers, seventeen year old Dane (Chris Massoglia) and ten year old Lucas (Nathan Gamble) have moved with their single mother Susan (Meet the Parents' Teri Polo) from Brooklyn to the countryside of Bensonville, and Dane is getting upset with the constant moving from various cities. Dane does find some excitement in the town living next door to beautiful girl Julie Campbell (Haley Bennett), he pays less attention to Lucas, and while Susan is at work more and more often, the brothers are free to explore the house. It is in the basement that everything changes, they find a trap door covered in padlocks, and cracking it open they find it has a dark and bottomless hole, they try some experiments to investigate why it exists and whether it does have a bottom, and Julie joins in with these tests as well, such as dropping a nail, and lowering a flashlight and camera. To get answers they explore the past of the house, a former owner confirms that opening the hole will release dark evil forces, and soon enough strange things start happening while they are in the basement, and even around the house, such as shadows appearing, and nightmares and personal fears coming true. In the end, Dane is the one who risks his life to save Lucas and Julie from the nasty forces of the hole, and after going into its dark world it collapses around him and the sinister apparition of his criminal father disappears, the trapdoor becomes a set of pipes, and everything seems to have returned to normal. Also starring Bruce Dern as Creepy Carl and Dick Miller as Pizza Delivery Guy. The acting is lame, the story is full of slow moments and plot gaps, and the special effects to make evil clowns and supernatural and monstrous manifestations, including in 3D, are the only good thing, I don't see why the critics give it three our of five stars, I found it boring and predictable, a silly teen focused horror thriller. Adequate, in my opinion!