The Hole (2009 film)
Encyclopedia
The Hole 3D is a 2009 American fantasy-thriller film directed by Joe Dante
and stars Teri Polo
, Chris Massoglia
and Haley Bennett
.
), 17, Lucas (Nathan Gamble
), 10, and their mother (Teri Polo
) move into quiet town Bensonville from New York City, Dane becomes interested in a beautiful girl who lives next door named Julie while Lucas constantly wants to play outside with Dane. One day, while their mother is at work, Dane and Lucas find a hatch in the basement with several locks along each side. When they open the mysterious hatch, they find a seemingly bottomless pit. They drop nails down to see how far the tunnel goes. When they don't hear the nails hit the bottom, they attach a talking doll with a flashlight to a string and lower it into the hole. When both the light and the talking doll disappear they pull the rope back to find nothing attached to it. Just then neighbour Julie (Haley Bennett
) arrives and asks what they're doing. They show her the hatch in the basement and open it to let her see the dark pit. They then attach a video camera and a flashlight to a long string and lower them, hoping to see the bottom. When both become invisible in the darkness, they pull the camera up. They take the video to their TV upstairs and watch. In the middle of the video, their mother comes in. Hoping not to let their mom find out about the hole, Dane stands up in front of the television and quickly explains that they were watching a show, but as they do this, they miss an eye looking at the camera.
Dane and Julie go out as friends later, leaving Lucas in the house. Lucas finds a clown puppet on his bed and thinks Dane left it there to scare him, because he's scared of clowns. As revenge he puts it in Dane's bed to frighten him. Lucas then goes down to the basement, and when he's about to leave he finds the puppet sitting on the step. The clown then winks at Lucas which makes Lucas run into some boxes. When he looks at the stairs the clown is gone. He relaxes only to find the clown beside him. Lucas then runs to the door only to find it locked. He looks back to find the puppet's shadow on the wall. He tries the door again and this time it opens. He quickly flees from the basement, falls to the floor and closes the door. Then when Dane arrives home Lucas explains everything that happened, but Dane explains that he didn't put the clown on Lucas' bed.
At the same time Julie is in the bathroom of a restaurant when she hears a girl crying in one of the toilet's cubicles. Suddenly the lights go out. Julie goes to the door but it's locked. Then the little girl (Quinn Lord
) comes out of the cubicle and slowly walks towards Julie, but then a bunch of girls come in and the lights come back on and the girl disappears. Just after Lucas tells Dane about the clown he goes down into the basement to find that the clown is gone, but they find the little girl instead, who then walks into the kitchen. The two follow her and they run into Julie, who then spots the little girl going back into the basement and crawling into the hole. The three decide to lock the hole but then notice that the locks are missing. Dane then puts a very heavy desk over the hole to stop it from opening, but the next day they find the hole door open and the desk at the other side of the room.
Soon after Dane nails the hole shut. Dane and Lucas ask Julie about the guy that lived in the house. Julie explains that someone called "Creepy Carl" (Bruce Dern
) used to live in the house, but left. They go to where Creepy Carl lives now to ask him about the hole. They find him at a desk surrounded by many lights. When Dane tells him about the hole he freaks out and explains many times that "the darkness" is coming to get them. They leave and Creepy Carl finds Dane's notebook and begins to draw in it. That night the nails come out from the hole door one by one. Meanwhile, Creepy Carl is still drawing when the lights suddenly pop one by one, leaving the room in darkness.
The next day Dane goes back to Creepy Carl's for his notebook and finds that Creepy Carl is missing. He finds his notebook covered in black on each page. Julie then invites the two boys over for a swimming party to take their minds off the hole. But when Dane jumps into the pool he sees a figure standing next to the pool. He surfaces to find some muddy footprints beside the pool leading to the front garden. He and Julie follow them, leaving Lucas at the pool. When Lucas is alone he is pulled into the pool and held down by something. Luckily he is saved by Dane. Lucas explains that the clown pulled him in but Dane thinks that Lucas caught his foot in the drain.
That night Dane sees a small handprint on Lucas' ankle. He then realizes that the black pages are parts of one picture and tries to find out what the picture is. While he does this he hears a whistling and finds a letter on the table that says, "Hello Boy." on it. He tells Lucas that someone is in the house. While looking, Lucas finds a policeman (Peter Shinkoda), who says that he's looking for a girl and shows him a picture of two young girls. Lucas recognizes the one on the right of the picture as the little girl in the basement, but before he can tell the policeman he turns around to keep on looking. Lucas sees that the back of the policeman's head is missing. Lucas goes to Dane to tell him, and they both go in the basement and see the policeman crawling into the hole.
Meanwhile Julie is being visited by the little girl and she freaks out and climbs out the window. She then runs into Dane and Lucas and explains that the little girl is her dead friend Annie Smith and she runs to the fairground where she died and is followed by Dane, leaving Lucas in her garden. Julie finds Annie on the rollercoaster track at the exact spot where she fell. She explains that Julie let her and the policeman fall and jumps off the track but this time Julie grabs her and explains that she is no longer frightened of her. Annie then says goodbye to Julie and disappears just as Dane arrives.
Meanwhile Lucas thinks he hears Dane in the basement but he finds the clown waiting for him. Lucas tries to run but the doors are locked and the two go into a battle, then Lucas speeds up the air conditioning fan and tricks the clown into running into it. Dane finds Lucas next to the shredded remains of the puppet and saying, "I really don't like clowns." Dane then explains that the hole brings people's worst fear to life, Lucas: clowns, Julie: what happened to Annie and the policeman, but when Julie asks what Dane is afraid of he says he isn't scared of anything.
Julie invites Lucas and Dane over, and while Lucas begins to pack, Julie and Dane try to figure out what the picture is. They finally make a picture of a boy being grabbed by a giant man. Dane realizes that the boy is Lucas and that he has been dragged into the hole. Then Dane confesses that he is afraid of his father because he was always beating him. He then goes into the hole to rescue Lucas. Once in the hole he finds himself next to a wrecked apartment. He goes inside and finds a hall covered with pictures of his family, and in each one that had the father on it his face was mucked up. The hall leads to a living room where he finds Lucas in a cupboard. He then closes the door and tells Lucas to climb out by using the cupboard's shelf, leaving himself to fight his dad (John DeSantis
). During the fight Dane points out that the hole's version of his dad is not like the real dad at all: he's too tall, he doesn't look like him and he knows that the only reason he beat up Dane was that he was afraid of everyone else. Because Dane is getting over his fear the room falls apart and the hole's version of Dane's dad turns into what his dad really looks like (Doug Chapman
). Dane then escapes the hole by climbing the ceiling fan.
The mother returns from a two-day course at a hospital in the next town, and the hole has turned into an ordinary crawl space. With the hole gone Lucas asks his mom what she's afraid of (jokingly). She replies that she was afraid of a monster that she thought was under her bed as a kid, to which Lucas replies with an "Uh oh." The hole door opens and the film ends.
and had its theatrical release in summer 2010. It screened at the Cannes Film Festival 2010. The film had its United States
debut screening at the Castro Theatre
in San Francisco on October 7, 2011.
Joe Dante
Joseph "Joe" Dante, Jr. is an American film director and producer of films generally with humorous and science fiction content....
and stars Teri Polo
Teri Polo
Theresa Elizabeth "Teri" Polo is an American actress known for her role of Pam Focker in the movie Meet the Parents and its two sequels, Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers...
, Chris Massoglia
Chris Massoglia
Christopher Paul "Chris" Massoglia is an American television and motion picture actor.-Early life:Chris Massoglia was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Christopher and Karen Massoglia. His father is a chiropractor and his mother a homemaker...
and Haley Bennett
Haley Bennett
Haley Bennett is an American singer and actress.She will star in the new FX series Outlaw Country with Luke Grimes and Mary Steenburgen.-Life and career:...
.
Plot
When Dane (Chris MassogliaChris Massoglia
Christopher Paul "Chris" Massoglia is an American television and motion picture actor.-Early life:Chris Massoglia was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Christopher and Karen Massoglia. His father is a chiropractor and his mother a homemaker...
), 17, Lucas (Nathan Gamble
Nathan Gamble
Nathan Gamble is an American child actor who made his feature film debut in Babel , for which he was nominated for a 2007 Young Artist Award....
), 10, and their mother (Teri Polo
Teri Polo
Theresa Elizabeth "Teri" Polo is an American actress known for her role of Pam Focker in the movie Meet the Parents and its two sequels, Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers...
) move into quiet town Bensonville from New York City, Dane becomes interested in a beautiful girl who lives next door named Julie while Lucas constantly wants to play outside with Dane. One day, while their mother is at work, Dane and Lucas find a hatch in the basement with several locks along each side. When they open the mysterious hatch, they find a seemingly bottomless pit. They drop nails down to see how far the tunnel goes. When they don't hear the nails hit the bottom, they attach a talking doll with a flashlight to a string and lower it into the hole. When both the light and the talking doll disappear they pull the rope back to find nothing attached to it. Just then neighbour Julie (Haley Bennett
Haley Bennett
Haley Bennett is an American singer and actress.She will star in the new FX series Outlaw Country with Luke Grimes and Mary Steenburgen.-Life and career:...
) arrives and asks what they're doing. They show her the hatch in the basement and open it to let her see the dark pit. They then attach a video camera and a flashlight to a long string and lower them, hoping to see the bottom. When both become invisible in the darkness, they pull the camera up. They take the video to their TV upstairs and watch. In the middle of the video, their mother comes in. Hoping not to let their mom find out about the hole, Dane stands up in front of the television and quickly explains that they were watching a show, but as they do this, they miss an eye looking at the camera.
Dane and Julie go out as friends later, leaving Lucas in the house. Lucas finds a clown puppet on his bed and thinks Dane left it there to scare him, because he's scared of clowns. As revenge he puts it in Dane's bed to frighten him. Lucas then goes down to the basement, and when he's about to leave he finds the puppet sitting on the step. The clown then winks at Lucas which makes Lucas run into some boxes. When he looks at the stairs the clown is gone. He relaxes only to find the clown beside him. Lucas then runs to the door only to find it locked. He looks back to find the puppet's shadow on the wall. He tries the door again and this time it opens. He quickly flees from the basement, falls to the floor and closes the door. Then when Dane arrives home Lucas explains everything that happened, but Dane explains that he didn't put the clown on Lucas' bed.
At the same time Julie is in the bathroom of a restaurant when she hears a girl crying in one of the toilet's cubicles. Suddenly the lights go out. Julie goes to the door but it's locked. Then the little girl (Quinn Lord
Quinn Lord
Quinn Edmond Julian Lord is a Canadian child actor probably best known for playing Sam in Trick 'r Treat. His career started in 2004.-Films:-Television:-External links:**...
) comes out of the cubicle and slowly walks towards Julie, but then a bunch of girls come in and the lights come back on and the girl disappears. Just after Lucas tells Dane about the clown he goes down into the basement to find that the clown is gone, but they find the little girl instead, who then walks into the kitchen. The two follow her and they run into Julie, who then spots the little girl going back into the basement and crawling into the hole. The three decide to lock the hole but then notice that the locks are missing. Dane then puts a very heavy desk over the hole to stop it from opening, but the next day they find the hole door open and the desk at the other side of the room.
Soon after Dane nails the hole shut. Dane and Lucas ask Julie about the guy that lived in the house. Julie explains that someone called "Creepy Carl" (Bruce Dern
Bruce Dern
Bruce MacLeish Dern is an American film actor. He also appeared as a guest star in numerous television shows. He frequently takes roles as a character actor, often playing unstable and villainous characters...
) used to live in the house, but left. They go to where Creepy Carl lives now to ask him about the hole. They find him at a desk surrounded by many lights. When Dane tells him about the hole he freaks out and explains many times that "the darkness" is coming to get them. They leave and Creepy Carl finds Dane's notebook and begins to draw in it. That night the nails come out from the hole door one by one. Meanwhile, Creepy Carl is still drawing when the lights suddenly pop one by one, leaving the room in darkness.
The next day Dane goes back to Creepy Carl's for his notebook and finds that Creepy Carl is missing. He finds his notebook covered in black on each page. Julie then invites the two boys over for a swimming party to take their minds off the hole. But when Dane jumps into the pool he sees a figure standing next to the pool. He surfaces to find some muddy footprints beside the pool leading to the front garden. He and Julie follow them, leaving Lucas at the pool. When Lucas is alone he is pulled into the pool and held down by something. Luckily he is saved by Dane. Lucas explains that the clown pulled him in but Dane thinks that Lucas caught his foot in the drain.
That night Dane sees a small handprint on Lucas' ankle. He then realizes that the black pages are parts of one picture and tries to find out what the picture is. While he does this he hears a whistling and finds a letter on the table that says, "Hello Boy." on it. He tells Lucas that someone is in the house. While looking, Lucas finds a policeman (Peter Shinkoda), who says that he's looking for a girl and shows him a picture of two young girls. Lucas recognizes the one on the right of the picture as the little girl in the basement, but before he can tell the policeman he turns around to keep on looking. Lucas sees that the back of the policeman's head is missing. Lucas goes to Dane to tell him, and they both go in the basement and see the policeman crawling into the hole.
Meanwhile Julie is being visited by the little girl and she freaks out and climbs out the window. She then runs into Dane and Lucas and explains that the little girl is her dead friend Annie Smith and she runs to the fairground where she died and is followed by Dane, leaving Lucas in her garden. Julie finds Annie on the rollercoaster track at the exact spot where she fell. She explains that Julie let her and the policeman fall and jumps off the track but this time Julie grabs her and explains that she is no longer frightened of her. Annie then says goodbye to Julie and disappears just as Dane arrives.
Meanwhile Lucas thinks he hears Dane in the basement but he finds the clown waiting for him. Lucas tries to run but the doors are locked and the two go into a battle, then Lucas speeds up the air conditioning fan and tricks the clown into running into it. Dane finds Lucas next to the shredded remains of the puppet and saying, "I really don't like clowns." Dane then explains that the hole brings people's worst fear to life, Lucas: clowns, Julie: what happened to Annie and the policeman, but when Julie asks what Dane is afraid of he says he isn't scared of anything.
Julie invites Lucas and Dane over, and while Lucas begins to pack, Julie and Dane try to figure out what the picture is. They finally make a picture of a boy being grabbed by a giant man. Dane realizes that the boy is Lucas and that he has been dragged into the hole. Then Dane confesses that he is afraid of his father because he was always beating him. He then goes into the hole to rescue Lucas. Once in the hole he finds himself next to a wrecked apartment. He goes inside and finds a hall covered with pictures of his family, and in each one that had the father on it his face was mucked up. The hall leads to a living room where he finds Lucas in a cupboard. He then closes the door and tells Lucas to climb out by using the cupboard's shelf, leaving himself to fight his dad (John DeSantis
John DeSantis
John DeSantis is a Canadian actor, perhaps best known as Lurch in the 1998–99 Fox Family production of The Addams Family, entitled The New Addams Family. This role was originally portrayed by Ted Cassidy. He is 206 cm tall. Because of his great height, he has been recognised as one of the...
). During the fight Dane points out that the hole's version of his dad is not like the real dad at all: he's too tall, he doesn't look like him and he knows that the only reason he beat up Dane was that he was afraid of everyone else. Because Dane is getting over his fear the room falls apart and the hole's version of Dane's dad turns into what his dad really looks like (Doug Chapman
Doug Chapman
Doug Chapman is a stunt performer and actor, a member of Stunts Canada, who works in film and television.-Biography:Height: 5 ft 10in...
). Dane then escapes the hole by climbing the ceiling fan.
The mother returns from a two-day course at a hospital in the next town, and the hole has turned into an ordinary crawl space. With the hole gone Lucas asks his mom what she's afraid of (jokingly). She replies that she was afraid of a monster that she thought was under her bed as a kid, to which Lucas replies with an "Uh oh." The hole door opens and the film ends.
Cast
- Teri PoloTeri PoloTheresa Elizabeth "Teri" Polo is an American actress known for her role of Pam Focker in the movie Meet the Parents and its two sequels, Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers...
as Susan Thomson - Haley BennettHaley BennettHaley Bennett is an American singer and actress.She will star in the new FX series Outlaw Country with Luke Grimes and Mary Steenburgen.-Life and career:...
as Julie Campbell - Chris MassogliaChris MassogliaChristopher Paul "Chris" Massoglia is an American television and motion picture actor.-Early life:Chris Massoglia was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Christopher and Karen Massoglia. His father is a chiropractor and his mother a homemaker...
as Dane Thompson - Bruce DernBruce DernBruce MacLeish Dern is an American film actor. He also appeared as a guest star in numerous television shows. He frequently takes roles as a character actor, often playing unstable and villainous characters...
as Creepy Carl - Nathan GambleNathan GambleNathan Gamble is an American child actor who made his feature film debut in Babel , for which he was nominated for a 2007 Young Artist Award....
as Lucas Thompson - Quinn LordQuinn LordQuinn Edmond Julian Lord is a Canadian child actor probably best known for playing Sam in Trick 'r Treat. His career started in 2004.-Films:-Television:-External links:**...
as Annie Smith - John DeSantisJohn DeSantisJohn DeSantis is a Canadian actor, perhaps best known as Lurch in the 1998–99 Fox Family production of The Addams Family, entitled The New Addams Family. This role was originally portrayed by Ted Cassidy. He is 206 cm tall. Because of his great height, he has been recognised as one of the...
as Monster Dad - Merritt Patterson as Young Girl
- Jessica Just as Pool Girl
- Peter Shinkoda as Young Cop
- Chelsea Ricketts as Whitney
- Chord OverstreetChord OverstreetChord Overstreet is an American actor, singer and musician, best known for his role as Sam Evans on the television series Glee.-Early life:...
as Adam, Teenage Boy - Doug ChapmanDoug ChapmanDoug Chapman is a stunt performer and actor, a member of Stunts Canada, who works in film and television.-Biography:Height: 5 ft 10in...
as Normal Dad - Ali Cobrin as Tiffany
- Paul Hooson as Jester
- Misha Bugaev as Flirty Boy
- Stephanie Wilcox
- Dylan Garrett as Pickup Driver
- Dick MillerDick MillerRichard "Dick" Miller is an American character actor who has appeared in over 100 films, particularly those produced by Roger Corman, and later in films of directors who started their careers with Corman, including James Cameron and Joe Dante, with the distinction of appearing in every film made...
as Pizza Delivery Guy (uncredited cameo)
Reception
The film garnered positive reviews from critics. Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 86% of the critics gave the film a positive review, based on a sample of 22 reviews, with a rating average of 6.5 out of 10.Release
The film premiered on September 12, 2009 at Toronto International Film FestivalToronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
and had its theatrical release in summer 2010. It screened at the Cannes Film Festival 2010. The film had its United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
debut screening at the Castro Theatre
Castro Theatre
The Castro Theatre is a popular San Francisco movie palace which became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100 in September 1976. Located at 429 Castro Street, in the Castro district, it was built in 1922 with a Spanish Colonial Baroque façade that pays homage—in its great arched central window...
in San Francisco on October 7, 2011.