Title: The Hole (2001)
Director: Nick Hamm
Actors: Keira Knightley, Thora Birch, Daniel Brocklebank, Desmond Harrington, a.o.
Runtime: 102 Mins.

I recently bought this DVD from eBay. It's no where to be found in the stores, which is odd because it was released on DVD, here, in 2002 or so and there are plenty of movies that are way older that are still available. I don't get who makes the decision as to which DVD's should be available and which aren't. I think this is one big reason why people download movies. If you can't buy and you want to have it you wonder what other options you have: looking it up on eBay or downloading are the only ones that come to mind.

Anyways, back to the movie. I can remember this movie from when it first came out. I had no idea who Keira Knightley was back then, but I do remember the movie poster and the trailers (that are in the extras section) and I remember reading about it in a crappy magazine that I used to read. I thought it seemed like a cool movie, but for some reason I couldn't/didn't go to see it. Then I sort of forgot about it. Until recently, of course.

The movie starts out in a very typical teen slasher kind of way. Liz, played by Thora Birch, is the only one who survived a horrible incident. She runs to campus on socks and is covered in cuts and blood. She is mentally unstable and doesn't want to talk about the events. A psychiatrist tries to get her to talk by getting her to do all these calm down exercises.

Finally, she starts to talk and in a flashback we see how she goes to a very exclusive English school and how she is in love with Mike, the son of a rockstar, who happens to go there. She is not popular, but every now and then, the popular girl, Frankie, played by Keira, helps her out. In return she has to do her homework.

One day, she talks about her love for Mike to her best friend Martyn. Everyone thinks he is gay, but he is secretly in love with her. He agrees to help her out and knows a place in the woods, an old bunker, where she can go and try to swoop Mike off his feet.

Liz is ecstatic and gets Frankie to come with her. Frankie convinces a guy she likes, Geoff, to come too and asks him to bring Mike. The four of them are going to spend 2 nights in the bunker while the rest of their class are on a field trip. Martyn hacks into the school computer and changes a bunch of things, so school thinks they are sick at home and their parents think they are on the field trip.

They are there and nothing much happens. They just sort of camp out there and talk a bit. On the third day Martyn is supposed to let them out again, since the door can only be opened from the outside, but he doesn't show up and they start to freak. Then Liz thinks it's because Martyn has a crush on her and doesn't want her to be with Mike.

They, then, think that the whole place is wired with mics, so Martyn can keep track of what is happening in the bunker. They come up with a very lousy, yet hilarious act to get Martyn to think that Frankie is really sick and that everyone is angry with Liz. Then the next day they find the bunker door open and everyone thanks Liz. Martyn gets arrested for locking them up in there.

But is this really what happened there? And how come 3 of the 4 students are dead. Slowly the truth unravels throughout the movie as flashback after flashback hit Liz. Who is to blame? Is it Martyn? Is it someone else?

I thought it was a really clever movie. It starts out very cliched, but soon you find out that it's not the usual teenage horror/thriller stuff. Even though it took me 30 minutes to figure out what happened, instead of the whole movie, I thought it was a nice touch and something new. I found it is actually based on a book and I definitely am going to read it. I give this movie a 8.5