The Hole *** (2001, Thora Birch, Desmond Harrington, Daniel Brocklebank, Keira Knightley, Laurence Fox, Embeth Davidtz) – Classic Movie Review 891

Director Nick Hamm’s 2001 British thriller focuses on three rebellious Brit school friends, Mike, Frankie and Geoff, who escape the tedium of a school geography field trip to Wales by hiding in an abandoned old bomb-shelter bunker. Hamm’s movie is an effectively disturbing, well-made and satisfyingly eerie psychological thriller.

America’s Thora Birch stars as Liz Dunn, a girl who stumbles down the road to her school and screams for help. She ends up in hospital where she’s quizzed by a police psychologist (Embeth Davidtz) and tells her story in flashbacks.

Desmond Harrington, Keira Knightley and Laurence Fox also star as Mike, Frankie and Geoff, while Daniel Brocklebank plays the school nerd Martyn who helps them out by allowing them to stay in an old war bunker for the three days of the field trip on the condition that his friend Liz joins them. The teens go down the bunker, party and have great fun. But events quickly take a terrifying turn after Martyn doesn’t return to let them out.