The Hole
(2009)
(SPOILERS) There
was a six-year gap Joe Dante’s previous feature and The Hole (it was also six years between Matinee and Small Soldiers,
five between that and Looney Tunes: Back
in Action), although the intervening period had seen one of his most
acclaimed efforts landing on the small screen, the Masters of Horror episode Homecoming.
While both ostensibly saw the director return to the horror genre where he made
his name, they would also tread lightly on a feature that had been his stock
in-trade: comedy. That isn't to say The
Hole doesn't have laughs, but it’s much straighter than anything the Dante
had assembled for the big screen since… Well, The Howling probably.
And, while
there is much to enjoy in The Hole
(perhaps not so much next door neighbour Haley Bennett’s continued Sid James-esque
innuendos with regard to looking at her neighbours’ hole, such that it’s
entirely appropriate when a talking Cartman toy is later lowered into it),
there is a nagging feeling that it's absent the key ingredient that makes a
great Joe Dante film a great Joe Dante
film. It’s much more traditional in form than The Howling, both in its quality of humour and narrative.
As a piece
of filmmaking, though, this is as surefooted and confident as the director has
ever been, and the work of new collaborators such as composer Javier Navarrete and
cinematographer Theo van de Sande seamlessly complement his past form. It’s a
shame then, that its biggest innovation passed virtually unnoticed. Unreleased
in the US at a time, when post-converted 3D was at its zenith (stand up, or
rather hang heads in shame Clash of the
Titans and Alice in Wonderland), The Hole was unable to billet itself a
proper cinematic tenure, and died an undeserved death. Since it won the 3D
award at the Venice Film Festival, this counts as a particular scandal, with
Dante’s approach to the canvas being one of extension rather than in-your-face
tactics (the opening pull back from a car exhaust pipe recalls the macro
opening to Innerspace).
There isn't
all that much you’d say stood out in Mark L Smith’s screenplay (recently of The Revenant, and formerly of Vacancy), which charts a familiar line
in creepy goings-on in the basement and confrontation with one’s worst fears.
There are bits of everything from The
Gate to A Nightmare on Elm Street
to Flatliners and Ringu here, albeit within a very
PG-13/12 certificate safety zone, and Dante creates a potent atmosphere, particularly
during the first two-thirds, before the exact nature of the encounters becomes
clear and the force loses its gusto.
An early
shock moment is perhaps the best, as Teri Polo’s mum comes home to find the
kids watching the playback of a video they made by plunging a camera into the
bottomless pit. They turn as one to greet her, while she is oblivious that the
distorted eye staring out from the screen represents anything ominous.
The
logistics of the endless dark are nicely sketched out, from the creepiness of
being home alone with a clown doll (of course) or a Ring-like girl (actually played by a boy, Quinn Lord) shuffling
inexorably forward in a dimly lit ladies’ room. A scene in the open air, as the
trio frolic in Julie’s (Bennett) swimming pool, is filled with menace; unseen
hands pull Lucas (Nathan Gamble) below, and Dane (Chris Massoglia) glimpses an
immense figure above through the water. Then there’s the sketch book, pages pieced
together as giant frieze, recalling The
X-Files episode Conduit. While
these are all played for chills, Dante’s playfulness gets the better of him
with the clown attack; it begins throwing out one-liners, as if transformed
into a demented amalgam of Spike and Chip Hazard.
Unlike Final Destination, this force doesn't
just keep on coming. Once fears are conquered, the threat ceases. Dane’s, that
of his father, forms the climactic set piece, as he dives into the hole to
rescue his brother. There, he enters an intermittently effective, semi-virtual
dreamscape (the over-sized furniture is definitely a plus). While the picture
lends itself to the menace returning (mom’s afraid of the monster under her
bed), the brevity of the picture suits the slight composition and idea.
Dante
wastes no time getting the hole open, swiftly and economically establishing the
new home of the family and their next door neighbour Julie (Bennett). As usual,
he casts his picture, and especially his young faces, very naturally. Dante’s
facility for eliciting strong performances from his youthful casts is much
undervalued, and this joins the ranks of Gremlins,
Explorers, Eerie, Indiana and Matinee
as another home-run. There’s never any question that this family unit, with its
shorthand and intimacy and teasing, is a real one, and likewise Dante has an
easy affinity for the teenage condition, its neuroses and obsessions. Also, as
with other films in his oeuvre, the kids occupy a markedly separate world to
the oblivious adults (even the oversized kids in The ‘Burbs do).
Creepy Carl: Nobody
built the hole. The hole has been there since the world’s first scream. And now
it’s going to come for us. The darkness is going to come for all of us.
While the
Dante repertory company take a backseat (Dick Miller’s pizza guy doesn't even
get to speak), space is reserved for the formidable Bruce Dern, reuniting with
his ‘Burbs director two decades on,
as the afflicted former resident of the house (the one who secured the locks),
now – in a vision recalling the pink office taking up an otherwise deserted
floor in Innerspace – hiding out in
his rundown glove factory. It is, naturally, called The Glove of Orlac. We find him surrounded by every form of amped
up light bulb, sketching furiously (Dane also doodles, and we can see this
tendency to the toonish in Dante’s heroes as far back as Billy Peltzer). We
don't learn what becomes of him, but a little Bruce goes a long way.
What might
rather sadly be a sign of the times, or a filmmaker perhaps past his best, is
that The Hole feels a little lacking
for a Dante film. While he adapts to the material with the flair of one of
Creepy Carl’s finely fashioned gloves, one has been spoiled to expect inimitable
subtext, in-jokes permeating every scene, wry commentary on social and
political mores, and an overriding knowingness. The Hole, like Homecoming,
can be taken at face value, and while it’s an accomplished, entertaining
effort, it says something about the force of Dante’s personality that we have
come to expect more from him.
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