Paxman Meets Hitchens: A Newsnight Special (2/2)

Paxman Meets Hitchens: A Newsnight Special (1/2)

R.I.P Leslie Nielsen.

Godalming Christmas Lights 2010

The Hole 3D

This is the "Den Of Geek" review of "The Hole." I'm presenting it here because having just seen it, I pretty much agree with the reviewer.

Joe Dante

The Hole review

Luke Savage

Director Joe Dante returns with a new feature, The Hole, which returns to the family horror themes of his 80s classic, Gremlins. But does it have that film’s bite? Luke finds out...

Published on Sep 20, 2010

For anyone who a) grew up in the 80s, b) watched movies, and c) liked watching great movies, The Hole in 3D is more than just a film. Seven years after his last cinematic outing, 2003's Looney Tunes: Back In Action, Joe Dante is back. To some, that may not mean much. In the last two decades, only three other films, Small Soldiers (1998), Matinee(1993) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), can lay claim to bearing Dante's cinematic fingerprints. Hardly a prolific output.

But in the 80s, Dante was king. He made Gremlins (I could end it there, really, but I won't), sent River Phoenix into space (Explorers), put a miniature Dennis Quaid inside Martin Short (Innerspace), and had Tom Hanks, before he went all serious, star in what may be the most hard-to-categorise film of his career (The 'burbs). That's not even mentioning The Howling, which seems to have lost a bit of its shine with the near endless stream of inferior sequels it's since spawned.

All of which might be lost on the target audience of The Hole, which flicks between feeling like a stretched out episode of Eerie Indiana (no bad thing) and Flatliners for kids (ditto). Although Disturbia may be a closer match in terms of plot.

Screenwriter Mark L. Smith takes that film's structure of three kids bored in the suburbs and simply replaces the serial killer living opposite with a really big hole. So, instead of asking themselves if David Morse really is a bad guy, The Hole's young trio must investigate what lies beneath their garage.

It's familiar territory for Dante, who's always enjoyed exploring the darkness and quirkiness that lies beneath the facade of banal suburbia. Here, it's simply writ large and a little less subversive. Instead of suspected cannibalism or rampaging homeowners, we get killer clowns and hobbling ghosts wreaking havoc amidst the picket fences.

But this being, you know, for kids, it's never that scary. Save for a terrifically creepy bathroom scene, it's horror wrapped in cotton wool. Even the kids don't feel that worried by their plight. "You've got a gateway to Hell under your house," one says, "and that is really cool". Gone are the terrified inhabitants of Gremlins' snow-lined streets. In their place we have blasé, precocious teens who oscillate between curious and nonchalant.

In that sense, it lacks the Dante bite of old. Where Small Soldiers was a kids movie for adults, The Hole is just a kids movie. But it's a pretty good one, at that. If it misses the madcap energy of Gremlins, it makes up for that with enough reminders of Dante's eye for a great set piece. A hermit's den of hanging lights dazzles, literally, a swimming pool scene feels like a childhood nightmare come to life, and the climax recalls the off-kilter excess of his segment in The Twilight Zone: The Movie.

They're made even better by 3D too. The Hole was shot in 3D, making it a cut above the glut of recent pretenders who've tried to cash in on the craze after the fact. As with most films, it takes a few minutes for the eyes to adjust (a pizza eating scene in the opening few minutes was so vivid I thought I'd walked into an advert for a well known pizza establishment by mistake), but when they do the film's low key charms shine a little brighter.

And, of course, it's always good to see Dick Miller, even if he does now look like Eli Wallach in The Holiday. He doesn't get a line, but he still nabs the film's biggest laugh, narrowly beating an Eric Cartman talking doll.

That's the biggest appeal of The Hole. It may be Dante-lite, but it's still Dante. And it's great to have him back.

I liked it. An entertaining, if flawed, throwback to the family "horror" films of the 80's. It's also just good to see Joe Dante's name on the screen again. Let's hope we don't have to wait an age for his next film.

Tunes I Like Right Now....Update

Updated the "Tunes I Like Right Now" section.

Peter Gabriel - "Après Moi" from the album "Scratch My Back"

Porcupine Tree - "Blackest Eyes" from the album "In Absentia." They're one of the greatest bands that nobodies ever heard of.

Rodrigo Y Gabriela - "Orion" from the album "Rodrigo Y Gabriela"

Yello - "Tiger Dust" from the album "The Eye". You either love Yello or hate 'em.

Intruder

A little taste of Intruder. The New Blood Orchestra recorded versions of Peter's songs for a forthcoming album at Air Studios in June.



I'm really looking forward to this release. I loved the "Scratch My Back" album, but a whole record of Peter's songs re-recorded with an orchestra has me salivating.

White Wine in the Sun - Kate Miller-Heidke (by Tim Minchin)

Bill Bailey 'Part Troll' Live - Love Song

(2/2) Part Two. Christopher Hitchens on ABC1 Lateline

(1/2) Part Two. Christopher Hitchens on ABC1 Lateline

Christopher Hitchens on ABC Lateline Part 2

Christopher Hitchens on ABC Lateline Part 1

Mr. Deity and the Science Advisor

Mr. Deity and the Promised Land

Michio Kaku on Life After Death, Creationism and Scientific Evidence of Geological Time

Steve Martin - Atheist Song - First hymnal for Atheists

New Age Con.

How Can Theists Claim To Know? - Christopher Hitchens

Stephen Fry on God & Gods.

Christopher Hitchens on The Ten Commandments

Peter Gabriel Covers “In the Neighborhood” by Tom Waits

Peter Gabriel » Tom Waits from The Voice Project on Vimeo.

Tron Legacy.

The young Jeff Bridges looks naff, hopefully they're going to be working on it right up to the release date so it doesn't look so....... funky.

Still, I can't help but feel excited by this!

The First Men In The Moon

Watched this the night it was broadcast. Mark Gatiss is always worth the price of admission, even more so when he's written the screenplay. This wonderful take on the novel by H.G Wells is slightly hampered by a tiny BBC4 budget, but it more than makes up for it in pure tongue in cheek entertainment.

Gatiss is wonderful as Dr Cavor, giving us a glimpse of what he may have done if he'd ever had the chance to play that other Doctor so loved of Sci-Fi fans. 

The DVD is out now, but no Blu-ray!! What's that about? It was broadcast on BBC HD as well as BBC4. Come on chaps, sort it out!