Review of Hole, The

Introduction

Starring Thora Birch (American Beauty) and Keira Knightly (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Bend it Like Beckham), “The Hole” refers to an abandoned war bunker where four young members of Britain’s top private school hide one weekend to escape a geography field trip. But for Liz (played by Birch) there is another reason drawing her to this place – she wants to win the heart of Mike (Desmond Harrington), the coolest guy in school. Martin, the school fixer and Liz’s best friend, agrees to lock her in with three fellow skivers. However, things start to go wrong when Martin doesn’t appear to let them out on Sunday. When Liz finally stumbles out, dazed and bloody, she is accosted by the police, who are determined to find out the truth. It seems Martin is clearly guilty – but he completely refutes Liz’s story. Who is telling the truth?

Video

The 2.35:1 anamorphic picture is really excellent – sharp throughout and with vivid colours. The deep blacks, which are present in almost every scene shot in the bunker, are solid. Pathe has done a very good job with the transfer.

Audio

The soundtrack is in Dolby 5.1 and is, as with the picture, very good. The menacing atmosphere of the bunker is reproduced well here, with frequent surround effects and good use of bass.

Features

We are treated to nine deleted scenes, each presented in widescreen. Although the video quality is nowhere near as good as the main feature, they are more than watchable. The alternate ending and two alternate beginnings are interesting viewing, being such key parts of the finished film, but otherwise it is quite easy to see why the rest of the scenes were left out.

The director’s commentary is a little bizarre – Nick Hamm varies between explaining what is happening in the story, and critiquing his own direction. Whilst he is certainly enthusiastic and has interesting things to say, I found his commentary style a bit off-putting.

Rounding off the extra features are the obligatory trailers and filmographies. The menus are computer animated and themed around the bunker of the tale.

Conclusion

After seeing the brilliantly dark trailer last year, I was quite intrigued by this homegrown film with a young unproven cast – not generally the best combination for a good movie in recent times. The first third or so of the movie lives up to expectations – the characters introduced but not yet explored, there is a claustrophobic environment in the bunker, the actors are seemingly competent – but after this The Hole starts to lose its way. The plot is littered with holes (no pun intended!) and is hampered by fairly pedestrian storyline twists, and the dialogue in many scenes sounds stilted. And whilst the acting is solid, these roles could have been played by almost any of the young starsaround. Thora Birch – despite holding her own against the likes of Kevin Spacey in the past – also fails to carry the movie in the lead role. The Hole is a little disappointing in the end – I would class this as more of a thriller than a horror as there are hardly any scares.

The DVD on the other hand is vry good – great picture and sound, and a nice selection of extras.