Hailing from the UK and starring Thora Birch (after her successful turn in “American Beauty”) and Kiera Knightley (in her first significant role in a feature film), The Hole is a tense psychological thriller with an ending that leaves a significant question.  Or at the least attempts to leave one with questions….While it starts strong with a well shot scene of Thora Birch stumbling down a road littered with “missing” posters featuring her own face, the movie tends to dwindle from there.

“The Hole” takes the age old equation of locking people in a fairly small space with no way out and diminishing supplies and does nothing new with it.  This time it’s four teenagers who, according to the different versions of what happened, are either really great friends or just semi know each other.  After ditching a school field trip to party in an abandoned underground shelter, Liz, Frankie, Mike and Geoff, find themselves locked in on the day they were supposed to leave.  As usually happens in these situations, the teens begin to fight amongst themselves, with accusations thrown and tempers starting to ignite.  Amongst the drama, you have an outer story wherein Liz (Thora Birch) tells a psychologist that it was a happy-go-lucky time except for that part where her friend, Martyn locked them in.  However Martyn tells the police a different story altogether.  So who’s telling the truth?

This is where “The Hole” tries to take a twist turn by revealing at the end what really happened.  It’s not a huge twist, fans of the “locked in a room” movies will have seen it coming a mile away but it did leave me with a vaguely unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach (although think this had a lot to do with Kiera’s character’s flaws…..)

Not horrible by any means and not the best either.  Purely formulaic with both male and female nudity, this one’s good for a rainy day.

*I just started reading the book upon which this is based…..will update later with how they compare!*