THE HOLE. 2001

The acting in The Hole was so competent, & the set-up sufficiently interesting, that I was rivetted beginning to end. The students locked in the bomb shelter could've been just a variant of the kids at the haunted lake picked off one by one, but for the most part the story avoids too much cliche & strives for plausibility & suspense, in quite a stagie manner given the minimalist set.

It was a convincing verging-on-horror thriller until the climax, until (SPOILER ALERT) the "femme fatal gets away with it" ending seemed grafted on from a different film. Since the girl made a full confession to the doctor, whether or not it could be proven in court, everyone would know she did it. So the ending robbed the film of much of its strength.

But teenage thrillers are usually such no-IQ films, this one deserves credit for even thinking about its story.

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