I know parenting can be a hassle sometimes, but this is ridiculous! Kidding aside, there were plenty of moments in The Hole In The Ground where I wondered if director, Lee Cronin, who also co-wrote the film with Stephen Shields, was possibly inspired by personal experiences with children. The film touches on that idea of not knowing what to do when you aren’t sure what to make your child, if there’s anything deeper to those moments when they make those sudden shifts from sweetheart to obnoxious monster. Even if it isn’t, the film certainly has a personal touch that digs into the kind of parental anxieties you often see in creepy kids movies.
That is what Sarah (Seána Kerslake) is dealing with, on top of an already terrible situation. She and her young son, Chris (James Quinn Markey), are escaping an abusive relationship, and he is frustrated because he doesn’t fully grasp why they’re going to a whole new home. The new house is a bit rundown, but she takes initiatives to fix things up as they start anew.
However, things are off to a weird start. First Sarah nearly hits an old woman on the drive over, and the lady doesn’t react, nor does she do anything besides mumbling to herself. And one night, Sarah wakes up and realizes Chris is not in bed, leading her to explore the woods surrounding the house, and discovering a hole in the ground, and yes, this is a very literal, very big, almost crater-like hole…in the ground. When she doesn’t find him, she goes home, and sees him perfectly fine. But of course, over the next several days, she finds his behavior more and more off.
The film has a fairly simple setup, and the filmmakers know to keep a focus on that simplicity. As a result, the story has clear, efficient beat with solid pacing, and economic storytelling that makes use of every second of its 90 minute runtime. There’s no narrative fat to be found here, with everything setup in the earlier stages being paid off later in the film.
That efficiency gives the filmmakers ample opportunity to do some great work with the look of the film, and the actors. This is an Irish production, and it’s probably the ugliest I’ve ever seen the Irish countryside portrayed in a movie, with harsh and murky browns, grays, and blues. It sets a certain unpleasantness very early on, keeping you a bit on edge even before the creepy stuff begins. Cronin knows how to set a compelling and eerie atmosphere, and it builds to some pretty terrific scares.
Ultimately, it’s in the performances where the film shines the most. It’s a small cast that includes solid supporting players like James Cosmo, Kati Outinen, and Simone Kirby, but Kerslake and Markey are the stars here. They have a believable mother-son relationship, and you get invested in Kerslake’s frustrations in helping her son as things escalate over the course of the film. She’s magnetic and there’s a lot of empathy in the way she struggles to deal with the situation. The payoff isn’t particularly profound or as impactful as I think was intended, but it works because the filmmakers and the actors put in the work to keep you emotionally engaged.
We had a pretty solid creepy kid horror movie not too long ago with The Prodigy, and similar to that film, The Hole In The Ground doesn’t really do anything that different from what you’d expect from the genre, but there’s enough artistry in the filmmaking and the performances are so strong that you don’t mind its modest ambitions. It moves with an intense energy as it builds the mystery behind what’s wrong with Chris, and you find yourself wondering just as much as Sarah at every step of the way. And like any really good horror movie, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, and it leaves you with some gnarly images you’ll struggle to get out of your head.