April 30, 2001 9:39: The Hole

15

2/5

British horror movie The Hole certainly begins intriguingly: a distressed girl, shoeless and unwashed, struggles to run along a lonely country road.

Nearing exhaustion, she enters the huge forbidding corridors of a deserted public school, finds a phone, dials for the emergency services and then, on hearing a voice on the other end of the line, lets out a huge piercing scream. It's a startling moment.

So just what unimaginable horror has she barely survived? Just what heart of darkness has she peered into?

Well, no surprises for guessing that The Hole, as directed by Nick Hamm (who had a hit with romantic comedy Martha Meet Frank, Daniel and Lawrence), promises more than it delivers.

It is less "The horror! The horror!" and more "Why bother? Why bother?"

The girl in question is Liz Dunn (played by sulky American starlet Thora Birch, still hot property after American Beauty).

Missing for nearly a fortnight, having been trapped in a remote underground war bunker along with three other public school rich kids, Liz emerges into the cold light of day to tell her story to eager-to-listen counsellor Dr Philippa Horwood (Embeth Davidtz).

It appears school kids will do anything to dodge a geography field trip and that includes hanging out in dark, dank holes.

It's just that Liz seems to be telling a few porkies. For one thing her story ends all rosily (she gets her dream guy for one thing), which surely can't be right.

Maybe she's a bit delusional, doing her best to block out the disturbing grisly memories of what really went on.

Her geeky techie friend Martin (Daniel Brocklebank) certainly suggests as much, and this is where The Hole really does start to disappear up its own rear end.

It becomes increasingly clear this is a movie happy to sacrifice complex characterisation in its quest to get knee-jerk reactions to the plot.

The predictably ugly events that take place in the hole as a result barely raise an eyebrow let alone genuinely disturb, and that's a big shame because there is the germ of an unsettlingly good idea in this movie.

But hey, it's definitely not as bad as that horror movie monstrosity it most resembles, Blair Witch 2. At least that's something.

Robert Ellison