Greetings, folks, WE BACK with another horror film recap. Today's movie is called The Hole in the Ground. It's available on Amazon Prime or Netflix UK, but since I'm in 'Merica and don't have Prime (I know, roast me), I rented it for $3.99.
The Hole in the Ground has quickly drawn attention and very bold claims that it's the SCARIEST MOVIE OF 2019.
Here's how Amazon describes the movie:
OH BOY — seeing that "A24" before the movie let's you know you're about to be destroyed mentally and/or emotionally! Last year, A24 dropped Hereditary, which ruined my life/sleep for weeks; and this year they put out Midsommar, which didn't scare me so much as it made me feel like my mind needed deep exfoliation.
So the movie description says this is about a kid getting swapped with an impostor. At the start, we see a kid hanging in the hall of mirrors and enjoying an amusement park. Is this Caucasian Us?!
We see Sarah driving with her son, Chris. She looks away from the road for one second and...
...SARAH ALMOST HITS A MYSTERIOUS FIGURE. She swerves out of the way, then gets out of the car to check if the figure is all right.
It only took 5 minutes and 36 seconds for this movie to make me say, "NOPE!"
Sarah and Chris go home, Chris gets scared of a spider in the house (understandable), Sarah and Chris have a discussion about his absent father (who abused Sarah), then Chris gets upset and runs away. Now Sarah is searching for him.
Sarah eventually finds Chris, and he's actually being respectful and calm, so he might be the impostor the movie description was talking about.
Later on, in the middle of the night, there's a loud slam. Sarah goes to check on Chris, but he's not in his room. She goes out into the woods searching for him and she sees a figure quickly hide behind a tree.
Sarah doesn't wait to see who the figure is or keep searching for Chris — she RUNS BACK HOME. I respect a rare realistic moment in a horror movie.
Sarah calls the police to tell them Chris is missing, but he suddenly pops up behind her.
The next day, Sarah and Chris are driving when she spots the weirdo in the road again. It's a woman named Noreen, so at least we know she's not an otherworldly entity or anything.
Noreen tells Sarah what anyone who has read the movie's description already knows: This Chris isn't her Chris.
Noreen is really determined to let Sarah know that this isn't her son.
LIKE, REALLY DETERMINED.
SO DETERMINED THAT SHE SLAMS HER HEAD INTO SARAH'S WINDSHIELD TO LET HER KNOW THAT'S NOT HER SON.
QUICK-ESCALATION ALERT: The next day, Sarah finds Noreen murdered. The killer (gee, I wonder who it could be?) buried Noreen's head in the ground and let the crows have at her.
At Noreen's funeral, her husband tells Sarah that he and Noreen had a son named James. He says that Noreen used to think James was an impostor and she thought she could tell this by his reflection in mirrors, which she grew obsessed with.
Sarah and Chris have a bit of an argument. Chris gets upset and shoves AN ENTIRE TABLE across the kitchen.
Later on, Sarah hears Chris doing some weird shit in his room, so she takes a peek and he's shuffling around like a weirdo, then he eats a spider.
BUT NOT SARAH. Instead she sets up a camera, because I guess she wants to make vlogs of this creepy kid doing horrifying things.
Chris has a presentation at school and Sarah gets freaked out by the creepy little shit being creepy as shit, so SHE LEAVES HIM BEHIND. Like, she literally runs out of the school and drives home without him.
Chris returns home, but Sarah has watched those recordings of him, so she knows he's a demon. She feeds Chris dinner, then tells him straight up that she knows he's not her son.
The impostor fully stops pretending to be Chris and attacks Sarah.
The impostor takes the unconscious Sarah outside and he's burying her head in the dirt, when suddenly he collapses. Sarah had drugged his food earlier (BRILLIANT MOVE).
Sarah wakes up. The impostor stays down.
Sarah locks the impostor in the basement.
Then Sarah runs into the woods and goes down a hole searching for the real Chris.
Sarah finds the real Chris in the hole and takes him to the car, then burns the house down (with the impostor still in it). Everything went so smoothly, I'm shocked. Honestly, this is an all-time great performance by a horror character. Sarah DID NOT have time for the classic scary-movie antagonist-returns-for-a-final-showdown bullshit. This movie is under an hour and a half because of Sarah's efficiency.
We jump ahead to the near future, where we see that Sarah and Chris live in a home that has hella mirrors, presumably so she can check on her son's reflection just in case another demon or whatever decides to steal his identity.
Sarah is watching Chris from the window, snapping photos of him riding his bike.
Uh-oh. She notices his face in one photo is looking a little blurry.
Actually, more than a little blurry.
OH, THAT BOY'S A DEMON, ISN'T HE?
Sarah assesses the photo, stands there thinking, then walks off. And that's it, FIN!
FINAL THOUGHTS:
PREVIOUSLY WATCHED:
Girl on the Third Floor on Amazon
Eli on Netflix
Eerie on Netflix
Secret Obsession on Netflix
Midsommar in theaters
Murder Mystery on Netflix
The Perfection on Netflix
The Wandering Earth on Netflix
The Silence on Netflix
Black Summer on Netflix
How It Ends on Netflix
Set It Up on Netflix
The Kissing Booth on Netflix
Veronica on Netflix
Dude on Netflix
Irreplaceable You on Netflix