A refreshing take on the psychological horror genre, with THE HOLE IN THE GROUND, writer/director Lee Cronin subverts genre tropes and delivers a nail-biting, often seat-jumping, jaunt into a story that mines the relationship of self-doubt, ultimately leading to revelations about the truth of oneself and strength of character.
Starring Seana Kerslake and James Quinn Markey, Cronin and his long time writing partner Stephen Shields, produce an exceptionally well-crafted script with a thoughtful and deliberate story. Focusing on single mother Sarah O’Neill and her young son Chris as they start a new small town life in the woods of Northern Ireland after what was apparently a less than ideal family situation with an abusive husband, from script to screen, visuals are not only ambient and immersive, but thanks to the O’Neills moving next to a dense dark forest and enormous sinkhole, become characters in the film. There is an organic nature to the entire cinematic structure that ties our emotions to the earth and the primal, visceral effect inherent therein.
Seemingly happy in starting their new life, things take a dark and disturbing turn when Chris disappears one night. Panicked, Sarah searches for him in vain in the dark forest, only to arrive back home and find Chris seemingly unphased and questioning his mother as to why she was worried. He was always in the house. But a mother knows her child and as days and weeks pass, Sarah sees a change in Chris’ behavior; small things at first, but growing exponentially more concerning and ultimately more violent. What has happened to her son? This isn’t Chris.
James Quinn Markey is a breakout star. From his first words in the car calling a kid at school “Ass face” only to then call him “Anus face” after his mother chastises him for his language, he wins your heart. You love this kid. A testament to Markey’s skills, and those of director Lee Cronin, is the subtle shift in that adorable character as we see and feel the shift in Chris as his vocal delivery is more robotically cadenced as opposed to the lilting “Ass face!” And then we get a resonant and believable chemistry between Markey and Seana Kerslake.
The emotional resonance of THE HOLE IN THE GROUND rises and falls on Kerslake’s performance. She is riveting. Her eyes speak volumes. We feel her frustration and uncertainty, and her panic, through her eyes and, in the case of the night chase into the woods when Chris disappears, her breathing (applause to the sound team here). Costuming places the character in casual overall-sweater wearing attire that is welcoming and approachable; Sarah has no pretensions, no superpowers. She is “just” a mother who loves her son and wants a better life for him than what they had. Where Kerslake soars, though, is with the emotional shift of Sarah as she finds her own strength; braving her fears and finding the truth about herself through almost losing the one thing she holds most dear – her son. Costume and hair play heavily into Sarah’s character development, most notably visible in the film’s epilogue.
Cronin relies heavily on ambience to create a solidly appealing, tension-riddled, and moody visual tonal bandwidth. Tom Comerford’s cinematography is perfection with gray skies, the intimacy and claustrophobia of a multi-level staircase, narrow doorways, the muted Crayola-hued forest green with dying brown branches of the pine forest abutting the O’Neill home, and the unique dutching and inversion of the camera which captivates from the opening titles and takes us down into the sinkhole. Using the Alexa mini, which affords more range for low light shooting, the first act night scene in the forest as Sarah searches in the dark with a single low beam flashlight, harkens to a “Blair Witch” feel. Interesting are some of the in-home camera angles which, while the film is told through Sarah’s POV, are captured from Chris’ eye-level POV creating a distortion of Sarah in the background; similarly, Sarah’s nightmares are distorted with an almost fish-eye look. Everything speaks to metaphoric distortion of reality, the tone of which is established during the opening titles with funhouse mirrors and Sarah and Chris distorting their faces.
Epilogue scenes in a new apartment on a college campus with brighter natural lighting, large windows, high ceilings and mirrors, creating a distinct contrast between Sarah’s life a year earlier and now, mirroring Sarah’s own revelations about herself and her son. Even her hair and clothes are lightened up and tidied. But keeping us on our toes, Cronin and Comerford steep us in ambiguity as we see Chris riding his bicycle in a continuous circle on the ground below his mother’s watchful eye, reminding us of the horror of going down the rabbit hole of the mind and life.
Colin Campbell’s editing is tight and fraught with tension.
Minimizing his use of CGI as much as possible, Cronin immerses us in the organic, primal nature of fear, particularly in scenes such as burying Sarah’s head underground (Kerslake really did have her buried), and taking us down into the sinkhole and into an underground system of caverns that metaphorically speak to the synapses and pathways of the brain. Comerford’s lensing of the underground sequences not only provides a sensory tactile experience but one of being harrowing and terrifying. Embellishing on the sinkhole, tree roots take on a living, breathing, moving life of their own, ready to devour, almost appearing as sharp teeth akin to the sand monster in the desert in “Return of the Jedi” into which Lando was about to fall.
Following up on the idea of distortion and revelations about one’s true self, kudos to production designer Connor Dennison and the play of mirrors from beginning to end. Noticeable is that there are no mirrors in the O’Neill house until the new apartment in the final shots of the film. Mirrors also serve as a telltale sign of trouble in the home of neighbor Des Brady (a wonderful turn by James Cosmo) who, with some carefully chosen words, subtly sheds some light on Sarah’s questioning about her son. Keeping the film grounded in nature, the O’Neill house bodes green tile in the bathroom, draperies with a floral and heavily vined print, and green Art Deco “Overlook Hotel” wallpaper which Sarah hangs, adding a touch of terror with a nod to “The Shining.” Each is telling and plays to the story.
A very moody score from Stephen McKeon just elevates the tension and fear. Avoiding synthesized instrumentation and using live orchestral elements plus some vocals of hypnotic chanting which is worked into the sound design, plays into the organic nature of the film as a whole, even in moments of absolute silence, proving cacophonous on its own.
Directed by Lee Cronin
Written by Lee Cronin and Stephen Shields
Cast: Seana Kerslake, James Quinn Markey and James Cosmo
by debbie elias, 02/05/2019
