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Mini Reviews (November 2001)

The Hole

The Hole (November 1/01)

The last 45-minutes of The Hole are so entertaining, so creepy, that it's easy to forget how lame the first hour is. Thora Birch (sporting an iffy English accent) stars as a young girl who, along with three friends, decides to spend the weekend in a long-since abandoned bomb shelter. They wind up trapped inside, though, and insanity begins to invade the teens... Had that been the premise of the movie, I've no doubt The Hole would've been an astoundingly creepy and effective thriller. But the structure of the movie has been complicated to such a degree that this sparse concept seems to be an afterthought. The story is told in flashback, and initially, it's entirely from Birch's point-of-view. But it's soon revealed that Birch's story is a complete fabrication. Now, we have to watch a bunch of different variations on what happened inside the hole - until finally, in the last 45 minutes or so, we get to see what really happened. That section of the movie features some really creepy sequences and images - my favorite being the zombie-like look the actors begin to sport after going a week without any food. It's that protracted section of the movie that I'm recommending - everything that came before it is essentially filler.

out of

© David Nusair