The Hole (2001) – Hole in the plot?

‘The Hole’ is one of those films that is good to watch, if you don’t think too deeply about it.  Ironically, this could be considered slightly contradictory to the film’s nature, as it does actually try and be smarter than the average horror.  But, then again, it’s not really horror, just like it’s not really a teen drama, or slasher film, but something that’s a bit of a hybrid of all those genres.

It’s set in a well-to-do English boarding school where four pupils decide not to go home for half term, but instead to party on down in an abandoned, er, hole – w ell, it’s some sort of underground bunker-type-thing where they can lock themselves away from the rest of the world and do all those naughty things that teenagers do.

All of this is orchestrated by Liz (Thora Birch, sporting a just about passable English accent).  She wants her mates Geoff and Frankie (Laurence Fox and a then pretty unknown Keira Knightley) to help her get it on with the most popular guy in their year, American hunk Mike (Desmond Harrington).  Unfortunately, he’s not just her ‘crush,’ but her whole reason for living.  And she’ll do almost anything to get him.  And that means anything, even if it’s to the detriment of everyone around her.

I won’t go into the details of the plot and what happens down there, as there are plenty of twists and turns – some of which that you might not see coming.  I mentioned earlier that ‘The Hole’ tries to be clever.  The police get involved in what went on down there and the kids are questioned and the film then tells the same story more than once, only from different perspectives. 

I also mentioned in the title that there may be the odd (pun intended) plothole in ‘The Hole.’ This comes in terms of the official investigation and things do tend to need an air of coincidence to make all plans succeed.  Plus some of the police do seem a little conveniently inept at times.

However, I watched ‘The Hole’ in the cinema back when it was released and I was certainly entertained.  Since then I watch it again every few years and there’s definitely rewatch value in it.  Especially now you can most likely find it on various online streaming services.  Give it a go – it may not be quite a clever as it wants to be, but it is certainly an entertaining adult drama/thriller.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that