Film Reviews

The Hole 3D

• Rating:
• Director: Joe Dante
• Starring: Haley Bennett
• Details: US / 92mins (15A).

There are two things you should know before you part with your tenner for The Hole 3D: this isn't a follow up to the 2001 Keira Knightly/Thora Birch outing and those used to blood and gore will find this teen horror very twee indeed. Rate it any lower, though, and it could induce nightmares. It's a tough call. With that said and done, it's nice to see Joe Dante, the man behind Gremlins, Innerspace, The 'burbs and Small Soldiers, back in action again.
Teenager Dane (Massoglia, Cirque De Freak) moves from Brooklyn to Smalltown, USA with his mother (Polo) and kid brother Lucas (Gamble). There's nothing much to do but hang about the house, perv at Susan (Bennett), the bikini-clad girl next door and, oh, explore that seemingly bottomless hole in the basement. Heavily padlocked with eerie scratch marks on the underside, the trapdoor, upon opening, unleashes a series of ghosts that attack the victim's inner fears. The only one who might have answers is Creepy Karl (Bruce Dern), the previous occupant of the house...
With nods and winks to The Ring, IT, Child's Play, Beetlejuice, and a little known 1987 horror, The Gate, which saw two kids unearth a gateway to another dimension in their back garden, The Hole 3D may look harmless but the director can't resist turning the lights off. Dante always had a talent for seamlessly slipping the macabre into family movies and although light and breezy affair for the most part, The Hole 3D is dotted with spooky moments. When Bennett encounters a little girl in a bathroom, and the lights go out, you can see where IFCO were coming from with the 15A cert. The stop-motion harlequin doll that chases young Gamble is both scary and funny, however, the demon that attacks Massoglia holds an all too realistic horror for some unfortunate children out there.
The reactions from Massoglia, Gamble and Bennett could have been stronger, though. If you saw a spooky girl who cries blood moving Ring-like throughout the house you'd be a little more fazed than the three are here: their reactions to this amount to nothing more than finding a once favourite comic thought lost forever. And once again the 3D aspect is sadly lacking - it doesn't add anything to the experience bar the deliberate shots of a scattered box of nails or a baseball flying at the screen.
In saying that, The Hole 3D is a perfect introduction to horror for young movie fans.

Review by Gavin Burke