A HOLE IN THE HORROR
Published 30 Sep 2010 09:30
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THE HOLE IN 3D (12A)
Director Joe Dante has a perfect resume for family-friendly horror.
On the one hand, he helmed the bloodthirsty B-Movie Piranha in 1978, which was recently remade in 3D, tore into more flesh in the werewolf yarn The Howling and sent a chill down the spine in his segments of The Twilight Zone movie.
He also catered for younger audiences with Innerspace and Small Solders and married the two strands perfectly in his best known film, the sublime Gremlins.
Screening in eye-popping 3D, Dante’s new film is a family-oriented thriller that proves you really should be afraid of things that go bump in the night. Unfortunately The Hole isn’t dark enough to scare anyone who has reached their teenage years, or bade them a tearful farewell many years ago.
Indeed, there are moments of unintentional hilarity like when a demonic clown puppet with a rictus grin unconvincingly attempts to strangle a young boy who suffers from a crippling case of coulrophobia.
The titular tunnel of doom provides Dante with lots of opportunities to make good use of the 3D format for cheap jolts but, unsportingly, he doesn’t oblige, perhaps fearful that the younger audience he hopes to court might be scarred for life by a gnarled hand unexpectedly reaching out of the darkness and dragging a screaming kiddywink to his doom.
Susan Thompson (Teri Polo) is forced to uproot her family for the umpteenth time to a new, secluded neighbourhood, causing friction with her older, teenage son, Dane (Chris Massoglia).
She tries to persuade Dane that life will quickly return to normal.
“Except the 2000 mile walk to see my friends,” he spits.
Younger son Lucas (Nathan Gamble) accepts the situation far more readily and even annoys his sibling by befriending the cute girl next door, Julie Campbell (Haley Bennett).
Playing in the basement one day, Dane and Lucas discover a trapdoor secured with several padlocks. Foolishly, the boys decide to remove the locks and open the trapdoor to reveal a seemingly bottomless pit.
When they seek answers from the previous resident, Creepy Carl (Bruce Dern), the Thompsons learn that the hole is a portal to The Darkness, a terrifying force which preys upon human fears. “The hole’s been there since the world’s first scream,” growls Carl menacingly. Oh dear.
Scripted by Mark L Smith, The Hole attempts to please everyone when it could have easily gone much darker without alienating younger audiences, as Gremlins proved more than 25 years ago.
The final showdown feels like an anti-climax after all of that banging beneath the trapdoor and the booms and discordant strings of Javier Navarrete’s orchestral score.
This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 30 Sep 10
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