Liz, a young student, disappeared for 18 days along with some of her friends. She resurfaces, disheveled and bloody, and in order to find out what happened to her and her friends she is interviewed by a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist, Dr. Phillipa Horwood, listens as Liz recounts the story about how her friend Martin arranged for her and her friends Mike, Geoff and Frankie to spend a weekend in an underground nuclear fallout shelter. They are totally trapped inside the shelter, as it cannot be opened from the inside, but of course that won’t be a problem since Martin will come back for them. For some reason that doesn’t happen, Martin doesn’t return to let them out, and when the teens realize they are trapped down there, they start turning on each other. Things go from bad to worse when they uncover hidden microphones in the shelter, apparently placed there by Martin. Liz claims that one morning, the hatch was suddenly open, allowing her, the only survivor, to escape. Everything sounds straight forward and such, but the psychiatrist is skeptical of Liz’s account of the events, and suspects there’s more to the story than what she’s been telling her.
The Hole is a British psychological thriller from 2001, directed by Nick Hamm and based on the 1993 novel After the Hole by Guy Burt. At the first look, it may appear to be a typical teen slasher, which is very far from being the case. It’s a psychological horror thriller about a bunch of rich prep school kids in England who wants to skip a field trip to Wales, by staying in an underground shelter for the weekend. Things go bad, and we’re presented with a twisted tale where the first half appears to be pretty straightforward, but then it’s progressing into a mystery that slowly unfolds. While it may not be too much of a surprise that there’s more to Liz’s account of events than what she’s been telling the psychiatrist, the movie also offers some tense scenes of how the spoiled youngsters react when they’re locked inside the shelter. There’s no doubt that the characters are supposed to come off as rather selfish and with an incredibly entitled attitude, making it hard to root for anyone. In this regard the performances are solid enough to keep the tension up, as they all turn on each other in full desperation.
While The Hole offers nothing groundbreaking, it’s still a pretty decent watch. The use of non-linear storytelling does keep you guessing for a bit, switching between current time and flashbacks, but it’s not like the “twist” at the end is that unpredictable. It’s still a well made mystery/whodunnit thriller, with a realistic tone and a claustrophobic setting which adds to the dark atmosphere.
Director: Nick Hamm
Writers: Guy Burt, Ben Court, Caroline Ip
Country & year: UK, France, Canada, 2001
Actors: Thora Birch, Desmond Harrington, Daniel Brocklebank, Laurence Fox, Keira Knightley, Embeth Davidtz, Steven Waddington, Emma Griffiths Malin, Jemma Powell, Gemma Craven
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0242527/
