“Unearthing Weak Frights: A Review of Joe Dante’s ‘The Hole 3D’ (2009)”[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5VGhWJlG5M[/embed]

Home » Cinema » Horror & Thriller » Review story: The Hole 3D by Joe Dante (2009)

16/08/2024 film review The Hole by Marco Tedesco

The director returns with a light teen horror, unable to provide the proper thrills

Although The Hole features an entertaining story and a decent touch of pop psychology, the major issue with the film directed by Joe Dante, released in 2009, is that its sweet atmosphere and sessions of ‘teen connection’ in typical Disney style constantly clash with the supposed scarier and thriller elements, canceling each other out.

Technically, the 3D effects heavily emphasized at the time are modest but provide enough moments with objects ‘coming out’ of the screen to satisfy young viewers (yes, the main market for The Hole was intentionally aimed at the eleven to fourteen age group).

For older viewers, however, the result is evidently too tame and polished, though the curious element of three-dimensionality somewhat expands the target audience and might make it work as suitable fare for a parent-approved romantic evening.

Dane (Chris Massoglia, 15 years old) and his younger brother Lucas (Nathan Gamble) move from the big city to a classic American small town, along with their mother Susan (Teri Polo), who is a doctor. Soon, the brothers discover a mysterious hatch in the basement that leads to a dark, bottomless pit, which seems poised to unleash strange supernatural forces.

The friendly yet intelligent neighbor Julie (a convincing Haley Bennett) becomes involved in the secret, and Susan appears happy to leave her children to play alone during her long shifts at the hospital, allowing them to interact with creepy puppets and elderly girls who cry tears of blood.

The plot of The Hole then evolves by taking the old saying literally that the hero must face their inner demons and exorcise them. All three kids will indeed do this, but it is Dane’s battle against his particular personal monster that goes beyond the horror clichés of the Seventies (evil clowns, abandoned amusement parks…) delving into more innovative territory.

Joe Dante, fresh off an episode of Masters of Horror from 2006, his special effects team, and the art department make a reasonably convincing attempt to dramatize the childhood fears of a teenager by playing with dimensions and creating an expressionist home environment in the style of Tim Burton, with distorted furniture and tilted lamps.

However, the best part of The Hole remains the light dynamic that develops among the three protagonists, which feels closer to how today’s kids are than, for example, Harry Potter and his friends were.

However, this choice also has a significant downside: instead of slightly lowering the tension between the scary scenes, the screenplay eliminates it completely, as these teenagers – who think it’s “cool” to have a door to Hell in the basement – take coffee breaks, play video games, and throw pool parties.

If the use of 3D glasses for effects that include a baseball flying at the audience, rusty nails falling into the pit, and some good underwater sequences was perhaps sufficient to justify leniency towards The Hole in 2009, fifteen years later – and on a TV screen – it is really hard to consider it a work worthy of the Joe Dante we had learned to know before.

Below you can find the trailer for The Hole 3D: