You know, life was ridiculously boring before you moved here.
For the past three years, it's been extremely frustrating knowing there was a Joe Dante film out there that I had no way of seeing, even if it was made in 3-D (which I'm not crazy about, but was prepared to live with). Now, after bouncing around the festival circuit and seemingly playing everywhere but the U.S., The Hole has finally made it to home video after the most limited of theatrical releases. (Note: the DVD's actually been out for two months. It's just taken me this long to get hold of my library's lone copy.)
Dante's first feature since Looney Tunes: Back in Action, which came out nearly a decade ago, The Hole is about two brothers who move to the sleepy suburbs with their mother and open up a can of worms when they find a padlocked door in the floor of their basement that turns out to be a gateway to a seemingly bottomless void. Older brother Chris Massoglia, a moody, artistic teenager, barely tolerates younger brother Nathan Gamble, but he does show some interest in neighbor girl Haley Bennett, who unwittingly gets drawn into the hole's orbit as well. With the boys' mother (Teri Polo) working all hours to pay the bills and their father out of the picture, it's up to the three youngsters to figure out what's going on, with a modicum of help from the home's previous owner (Bruce Dern, rather typecast as "Creepy Carl").
It seems the hole plays on the fears of all who peer into it, which means Gamble's fear of clowns manifests itself as a menacing Punch doll and Bennett has a few run-ins with a sad little girl with a stuttery walk. As for Massoglia, screenwriter Mark L. Smith tips his hand early on about what he's most afraid of, which makes the climax more perfunctory than it needs to be, but at least it finds Dante taking a spin through Twilight Zone country for the first time in a few decades. He even manages to work in a wordless cameo for the always-welcome Dick Miller (as a pizza delivery guy). My only hope is that his next film (whatever it turns out to be) is geared more toward adults -- and that it actually makes it to a theater near me.