Nobody built the hole! The hole has been there since the world's first scream.

The Hole

(2009)

Joe Dante's that is, not Keira Knightley's. The script is a fairly basic variation on a familiar theme, but Dante brings expert craftsmanship to a low budget "family" horror film that delivers some very effective scares and creepy moments (dolls and spooky girls are fairly standard horror tropes).

I'd have liked to see this in 3D as you can see he knows what he's doing with the medium ( no throwing objects in your face hack tricks). There's less of Dante's trademark quirkiness than any film he's made since Gremlins (this is probably more along the lines of The Howling and it's his first since that film without Jerry Goldsmith), but the suburban setting is a familiar milieu for him, as is having a young cast as the leads.

And there's a small role for the great Bruce Dern and the familiar (but sadly last) cameo from an uncredited Dick Miller.

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How would Horatio Alger have handled this situation?

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No matter how innocent you are, or how hard you try, they’ll find you guilty.

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You were a few blocks away? What’d you see it with, a telescope?

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But everything is wonderful. We are in Paris.

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What do they do, sing madrigals?

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The game is rigged, and it does not reward people who play by the rules.

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One final thing I have to do, and then I’ll be free of the past.

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Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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