WhoThrewThatMonkey "4 British students get locked in a bunker during their holiday and only one girl was able to make it out alive. It is up to a psychologist to find out exactly what happened leading up to and during their time in that hole."It is really hard to become invested in a movie where the main character is a repulsive, unlikeable megalomaniac.Liz (who is played by Thora Birch of American Beauty) stumbles out of an underground bunker, through the woods and contact the police (where her first unlikeable act is witnessed as she screams into the phone). She is one of four students who went missing during a time where the students were expected to go off on vacation. During character introduction, we come to find out that Mike is her love interest who is an American jock. Geoff is Mike's best friend and Frankie is a bulimic popular girl who comes along for...what ever reason and has no relationship with Liz in what so ever way.It's not exactly specified why instead of going on a proper vacation, they decide to go into an underground bunker. The story that Liz tells the psychologist is that her friend Martin who is very deceitful and can get want he wants, is in love with her but she wants to be with Mike. Martin agrees to help her by getting the four locked into the bunker. After 3 days, Martin is supposed to come back to open it up for them but when he doesn't arrive, they become worried. Fast forward through some nonsense, Liz suspects that Martin is listening in and develops the plot to have the others work along with her acting like they hate her. The reason? She believes that Martin hasn't let them out because she likes Mike instead of him. You know High School nonsense. After the group yell nasty things at each other, the vault door opens and they leave.Martin is brought in for questioning but reveals that he has no clue what they're talking about. Liz and Frankie are friends and her had nothing to do with them going missing as he was out of the country.Upon further one on one unrecorded conversation though, the psychologist gets the real story. Liz reveals that what really happened is Frankie got Geoff to talk Mike into going along with them when Mike really wanted to make up with his girlfriend and that Liz is the one who locked them in the bunker. Her plan was to get Mike to fall in love with her but what she thought would take three days ended up taking almost 3 weeks. Instead of calling off her plan and just unlocking the door, she holds the group hostage but they are completely unaware that she is doing so. The group went through some real issues including not having proper drinking water, not having enough food. Frankie dies due to her bulimic habits catching up with her. Mike kills Geoff out of a fit of anger realizing he has been hiding food and drink. When Liz decides to open the vault after sleeping with Mike, he gets upset and climbs a shifty ladder to get out only for it to collapse and impale him. The movie ends with Liz getting away with it all.That's the reason why I dislike this movie so much is because of the character Liz. She is manipulating, wants to be the center of attention and does things just to get her way. From the very beginning even when she tried to put herself as an innocent participant, I disliked this character. If at the end, she got arrested or better yet, killed, I think I would have liked this movie. But her getting away, just leaves a sour taste in my mouth.A big plot hole and another reason why I started loathing this movie from the very beginning was you see blood and police caution tape at the start of the movie, yet in Liz's first story, she says the four all got out alive when the hatch opened. Now, I guess it could be misinterpreted as the stress caused her to not remember exactly what happened but her saying that they all got out when clearly she was the only one, should have been cause for concern. If she wasn't the prime suspect for falsifying her story, she should have definitely not been allowed to go home due to three people being dead and she was saying that everything was fine.The one surprising thing is you see Keira Knightly breast in this film. Now, you may be thinking "Oh, cool! I always wanted to see them!" but this movie came out in 2001. Keira Knightly would have been around 15 at that time.Overall, good acting by Knightly, Laurence Fox and Desmond Harrington who all played their roles very well and were likable in some scenes but Thora Birch or at least the character of Liz ruined the movie for me. Some parts were good but overall, the story isn't solid and just seems like it was made to create a twist that everyone should have seen coming from a mile away. I am going to say avoid this movie.

Bentleybowtie This was a well thought out and well executed movie. At first blush, the concept of 4 bratty teens stuck in a bunker seems awful, but the reality is quite the opposite!Said 4 snotty - er, bratty - teens are keen to avoid a school trip (how droll!), and end up seeking shelter from monotony in an old bunker. It is once they are unable to get out that things get interesting, straining, and much less enjoyable than a schoolyard trip!Good acting and camera work stops it from being tedious - the relationships and character development make it a thrilling movie. It is a great movie that is definitely worth your time, and I'd highly recommend.

Foxbarking I really cannot write what I think about this movie without revealing some spoilers. However, I will put a note when I get to that spot.This was one of the most engaging films I have seen in a very long time. I made the mistake of watching it while I was studying for an exam. I thought that it wouldn't be interesting enough to pull me away from the studies. However, I ended up getting nothing done for those two hours.Going into this movie with nothing more than a vague description, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. It begins with the idea that Liz is a polite, likable school girl with an unlikely crush. In both the present actions and with the beginning of her story, it seems like the classic lonely girl loves popular boy but is too shy to get him story. Then, right when you are invested in Liz and you believe her friend Martin is a truly twisted and evil jerk, little bits of what really happened start to surface.Liz would have you believe that her story is a story about being in love. But the only thing it really is happens to be a story of selfish obsession taken to unholy depths of depravity. This story is a story about how to be as cold and heartless as you can as long as you get what you think you deserve to have.Spoiler after this line because I want to comment on the ending.I loved this movie up until the end. At the ending, I almost lowered it down to a four star rating, though. The past 15 years there is a trend that the horror villain gets no comeuppance. The ending to "The Hole" reminded me of the ending to "Cry Wolf," even though "The Hole" was released four years earlier.The police are not incompetent enough to have believed that Martin would have committed suicide in the river directly behind Liz's house. Liz is obviously not intelligent enough to murder Martin in such a way that the police would not be able to determine that he was murdered. The police are not stupid enough to believe that Liz's doctor would take her down into the hole and then fall for her whiny "help, help" when they came and saw Liz and her doctor down in the hole.This movie gives us absolutely no reason to believe that the ending is credible. It paints everyone as stupid except for Liz. The problem with this is that Liz is stupid. The only way she was able to keep them trapped in a hole is because she hid the key. And she further believed it was worth it for her best friend and best friend's boyfriend to die so she could be with someone who obviously thinks nothing of her.At least in Cry Wolf, the story was set up in a way that may have fooled investigators. "The Hole's" ending relies on the premise that the police and everyone are stupid and that you're stupid enough to not question it. It's a shame because until that happens, this was a first rate movie all the way.

Tweekums As the film opens we see a bedraggled girl walking into a large school building; as she heads in we see posters asking people if they know there whereabouts of four school children. The girl is Liz and she tells the story of what happened since the four of them went missing… As the end of term approached a small group wanted to avoid going on the geography field trip to Wales and Liz's friend Martyn had an idea… he had the key to an old bomb shelter in the nearby wood; he would open it up for them and return in three days to let them out. When the three days were up he didn't return and as the days pass it becomes obvious that he isn't coming back to let them out; at first they think he might have had an accident then they start to believe that he had no intention of letting them out; he had feelings for Liz but she was only interested in Mike, the son of an American rock star. She goes on to say how they finally got out after ten days. There is a problem though; when the police arrest Martyn he claims to have had no idea they were down the hole… one of them is clearly lying; the question is; which one? It later becomes apparent that what happened in the hole was much worse than we had been told but that doesn't mean Liz was lying; she could just have been traumatised; before she can tell us the full truth she will have to return to the hole one last time.This is a gripping chiller with fine performances from the fairly young cast. Thora Birch does a fine job as protagonist Liz; portraying her as either an innocent victim or an obsessed psychopath depending on whose story we are seeing at the time. The other key cast members are Desmond Harrington who plays Mike; Daniel Brocklebank who plays Martyn and Kiera Knightly and Laurence Fox who play Frankie and Geoff the final two members of the group. The only major adult character is Dr. Philippa Horwood, the woman interviewing Liz, played by Embeth Davidtz. The way the story is told keeps us guessing as to who is to blame for the predicament; in fact we don't learn just how serious things are until quite a way into the proceedings. Director Nick Hamm did a fine job creating a claustrophobic feel and a constant sense of distrust. I'd certainly recommend watching this; in fact watch it more than once; things seem quite different at times when you know what really happened!