User Reviews

The Hole in the Ground (2019) is a movie I recently watched off Amazon Prime for free. This St. Patrick's Day horror treat tells the tale of a boy and mother living in the Irish countryside with a mysterious woods nearby. Within those woods resides a mysterious sink hole that gives the boy visions that his mother might not be his mother and he may be something else all together. This movie is directed by Lee Cronin (Ghost Train) and stars Seana Kerslake (Dollhouse), James Quin Markey (Vikings), David Crowley (Ripper Street) and Kati Outinen (Le Havre). The storyline, cinematography and settings are very well selected and this movie had a lot of potential. There are a bunch of eerie and well shot scenes - the old woman in the street scene and the "head in the dirt" sequence were all really good and well executed. The film definitely keeps your attention and is well paced and filmed but in the end it just felt like it was missing something and could have been better. One of those films that leaves you feeling a little unfulfilled despite being worth a watch. Overall this isn't anything special but worth watching if you can't find anything else. I'd score this a slightly above average 6/10.

A movie about changelings. Finally a horror movie about Faeries. Faeries lore is scary as hell. The young actor is brilliant. Very talented. It's more tense than jumpy. Plenty of unnerving moments though, well worth a watch. Great cinematography and atmospheric music. The kind of story that could happen in any country. if the faeries replace your child with an imposter, you just beat the imposter until your sweet well behaved real child returns.

On the surface this film comes across as another semi-grade horror flick without merit. The characters are under-developed and the large number of loose ends that are never explained enforces the view that the director/screen writer couldn't be bothered to fill in the gaps.

What is interesting is that this seems to be intentional. There is a very well hidden parallel story that runs alongside the one which is presented to viewers. We see the story from the perspective of the protagonist Sarah O'Neill, who isolates herself and her son in a remote house near the woods. Her delusions gradually increase as the film progresses, and the viewer is dragged in to her fantasy world when there is no external context to help separate fact from illusion. The director plays upon uncertainty to construct the supernatural thread. However he also provides subtle hints that what you sometimes see are hallucinations (eg: the arm-wrestling scene).

Capgras delusion is the real focus of this film. Capgras is the condition in which a person holds the delusional belief that a close family member has been replaced by an imposter. The condition can be caused by trauma to the head (note the many references to Sarah's unexplained scar) and can also accompany other psychological conditions such as schizophrenia and psychosis. The final part of the film is clearly a psychotic event experienced by Sarah.

The use of mirrors within the film is another nod to Capgras. The film eludes to the fact that mirrors unmask the true nature of the person. Capgras sufferers can sometimes doubt their own identity after seeing themselves within a large mirror, although smaller mirrors may not produce the same effect. One type of therapy involves using many mirrors of different sizes to help the sufferer overcome the delusion.

My expectations were a little high when I noticed it was an A24 Studio film. They have made quite a few good horror films. This one wasn't extraordinary like Mother!, Hereditary or The Witch, but it wasn't a mediocre film. It did not give up its secrets until 3/4th into the movie. But once I saw the creature, the jig was up and I figured it out. I think its a 6/10. It does build up tension and suspense before the creature makes its appearance which is better than most of the jump scare burden mediocrity found with Hollywood films.

What spoils a horror movie with a great plots is just one - illogical behaviours by the actors as normal human beings. For example, if you hear strange noises at night and you want to check it out, you DO NOT go down in the dark and tip toeing around. You'd be turning on all lights available! And, also you noticed a big damn hole in the middle of the forest? What do you do? Report it to the authorities, talk and ask the local folks. Not keep it to yourself as if you just found a pot of gold. And you figured out your son is actually a shapeshifter monster who has superstrength, when he is under the influence of drug, TIE HIM UP quickly.

All these illogical behaviours spoilt the fun in the movie. Plus there's no nude bath scenes which is a must for all horror movies.

This movie is a slow burn mystery that for most will seem to not have much of a payoff or simply be misunderstood. It is very well crafted and done - this really is about the horror of Sara's mental health which is deteriorating - however the film makers left out an important piece of info that surfaces near the middle and end of the movie with the mirrors that explains what her illness is.

Sara (the main character) suffers from Capgras Syndrome a DMS(Delusional misidentification syndrome) -people with Capgras believe that one or more familiar people/loved ones have been replaced by identical strangers and are imposters. This is never mentioned (and for reason as it is the payoff) an illness the old lady in the movie also suffered from. The uncertainty in Sara's mental health does loom large in the movie but is unclear, and maybe the flaw is that it is never brought up, not even at the end, only at most hinted at if the viewer understands this syndrome - most people wouldn't and never have heard of it.

We do see that when Sara goes in the hole to save her son the monster chasing her ends up being her -the film makers literally give this to us and ultimately the most important scene in understanding (literally and metaphorically) what is going on. The Monster is Sara (her mental illness).

At the end of the movie when we feel that maybe Sara is doing better (we see her in a classroom and then interacting with others) -it at most is temporary as she has returned to taking pics of her son -she looks at the pics on the camera with some uncertainty as she is in a room full of MIRRORS.

Overall when you understand what is really happening this is quite an intriguing, suspenseful, entertaining movie.

THE HOLE IN THE GROUND is a new Irish horror flick that takes a low budget and traditional approach, very similar to other recent haunted house fare and stuff like THE BABADOOK. A single mother strives to bring up her boy in rural Ireland, but a mysterious sinkhole near to their home spells trouble and things go worse from there. The trouble with this slow-burner is that it goes down an overly familiar route so much so that there are no surprises or shocks in store, just plenty you've seen before. I did appreciate the main actress, who gives a strong performance, and there's no faulting the technical qualities; it's just a pity it's a story that's already been told so many times before and as such that this is a film that offers nothing new.

I was really looking forward to this movie and really wanted to enjoy it after a great looking trailer. Unfortunately that's where the greatness stopped. I thought the lead actress had the same expression on her face the entire way through the film - gormless. The first 45 minutes before any horror started instead of building character and developing the relationship between the mother and son the focus seemed very aimless as if just killing time until something happens. There were serious plot holes later on that really lost me with a character going into a sinkhole and magically getting out no problem with no explanation as to how that character could possibly get out of a sinkhole hundreds of feet below. What could have been a great ambiguous ending then was ruined by a last minute bad decision. A very hyped and poor horror film and too many aspects taken out of recent Irish horror films. Way too similar to 'The Hallow' and 'Beyond The Woods' and much older horror films like 'The Changeling.' A bad mishmash of better horror films. Very weak lead character with nothing interesting about the performance to hook you in or even begin to care about the character.

It takes literally dozens of horror films to rummage through - and get bored senseless with - until you finally come across a good one.

Considering the appalling state of cinema in this decadent age of Cultural-Marxist brainwashing/dumbing-down, I was recently beginning to wonder if there WERE any more good films around, or whether I was completely wasting my time expecting to find another very rare exception. (I've not reviewed much in recent years precisely because my interest for movies has dropped, mostly as a result of a fairly sudden drop in quality since around the turn of the century.)

Naturally, I didn't really expect an American film to break the mold, to end the streak of bad/average movies, much less a flick from the unholiest of all unholy places, Unhollywood. So it's a small wonder the film is Irish. Not because UK/Ireland are well-known for their quality horrors (they most certainly aren't), of course, but in the sense that it isn't a mainstream, commercial, big-budget stinker from Tinselhell stuffed full with a nepotist/elitist cast and directed/written by hacks and nitwits.

There are many laughable complaints about the movie's ambiguous nature: is the child really a victim of invasionofthebodysnatcherism, or is his mother a loon? The answer: who gives a hoot!

What counts are the very skilled direction (a nod to Kubrick), an effective score (another nod to Kubrick), good casting/performances (a nod to any competent director, and God knows there aren't many of those - especially among Xers and millennials), and not a minute of boredom.

Sure, the big action finale is a bit muddled, but I'd much rather be confused by a somewhat baffling story than utterly bored by a predictable one that's been recycled 100 times by lazy and/or talent-free journeymen - who cross their fingers hoping that their audiences will be amoebas and that they will be numerous. Certain aspects of the finale are stereotypical, such as the unfortunately very familiar Voldemoort-like/Gollum-like, big-mouthed screaming monsters which have become a dull staple of horror in the past 15-20 years, but this is the only true disappointment. I would have preferred a more enigmatic ending, with less detail about what the woman finds in the hole/cave/meteor-site/whatever. The hole itself looks great, quite primal, and part of the reason it does is because it is an object of great mystery. The more the director/writers reveal about the inner workings of such a baffling place, the lesser its pull on the audiences.

At least the more intelligent audiences. The masses will always much more prefer their Freddy Krugers and Jasons, their Rob Zombies and all-powerful serial-killers (who stick random fools in a basement or a room, then play highly absurd survival games with them), so it's nice to know there are movie-makers not always willing to pander to the lesser humanoids, film-makers who refuse to spell everything out in silly/needless exposition scenes. Because less is more: one of the 10 Holy Commandments of cinema, but one which is sadly neglected by most film-makers. (Including me. I say "less is more" than I keep droning on and on in my reviews...)

What makes the movie's quality even more of a surprise is that THITG belongs to the evil-kids horror sub-genre, one of the least effective types of horror. Not only is it very difficult to make a kid (or kids) seem menacing, but finding and casting such gifted and/or suitable child actors is near-impossible.

So, do I believe she is a loon or a victim of a malevolent force? I am not sure, but I prefer to say that the movie contains two stories for the price of one: one movie is a psychological study about a loon descending into total madness, the other a supernatural switcheroo invaders flick. Combing them is not an issue for me, but actually a good idea.

Nevertheless, there is a stronger case to be made that she is insane. Firstly, the old man said he noticed nothing strange in the camera footage. (Though, admittedly, he seemed disturbed: whether by what he'd seen (hence in denial) or by the woman reminding him of his own past, this remains unknown. A clever ambiguity - well played by the geezer - and free for interpretation.) Secondly, she stopped taking her medication. (Which, again, could be interpreted as the director trying to throw us off by making us question her sanity - when in fact she really is a victim of an otherworldly conspiracy.) Thirdly, she appears to have hallucinations. (Probably the strongest case for the pro-loon-theory crowd, though even this could be rationalized away by some obscure theory that her mind is being affected by aliens or whomever.) Fourthly, it is unclear how exactly she managed to "escape" the hole - given that it was (allegedly) controlled by very powerful unknown forces; she simply waltzes out. Fifthly, maybe her insanity was triggered by two events that occurred in a short span of time: her child showing disappointment in her character by calling her a liar early on, and the old woman warning her that her son is an impostor. 2+2=4. In other words, psychologically, it might make sense for an unstable woman to go into denial by deciding to believe that a child that distrusts her "must be" overtaken by an evil force i.e. isn't her real kid anymore - rather than face the fact that she may have "failed" her kid in some way.

Hang on... I've just convinced myself that she IS insane!

"Suddenly, there was no trail! There was no giant, no monster, no thing called "Douglas" to be followed. There was nothing in the tunnel but the puzzled men of courage, who suddenly found themselves alone with shadows and darkness!" - from the legendary MST3K-spoofed "Monster A Go-Go"

A friend recommended this movie. He said it had a nice atmosphere and was a cross between The Babadook and Invasion of the Body Snatchers-sounds about right after watching it.

I expected it to be a lot scarier though. The arm wrestling scene is still difficult to erase. Good acting from the young boy. Overall a good quirky movie out of Ireland