In this episode we talked about the film The Hole (2009), directed by Joe Dante.

Our email address is stillscaredpodcast@gmail.com. Intro music is by Maki Yamazaki, and you can find her work at her website, and music on her bandcamp. Outro music is by Joe Kelly, and you can find their music under the name Wendy Miasma on bandcamp. Artwork is by Letty Wilson, find their work at toadlett.com

Transcript

Adam Hello and welcome to Still Scared: Talking Children’s Horror, a podcast about creepy, spooky and disturbing children’s books, films and TV. Today we’re talking about the 2009 film The Hole.

Content warning for some brief descriptions of physical abuse.

Enjoy!

(Intro music plays)

Ren Hi Adam

Adam Hello Ren, I hear you’re sleepy

Ren Yes, I am somewhat under the weather, but I have a lemon and ginger tea next to me which is hopefully going to fortify me to talk about this strange film about a hole.

Adam And really, what is there to say about a hole? It’s in the ground, it’s dark, it’s bottomless in this case, and things emerge from it.

Ren Yeah, mm-hmm.

Adam And who knows from whence it came!

Ren Yep. This film is The Hole from 2009, not the film The Hole from 2001, which — I don’t know, I haven’t seen it. Have you seen it?

Adam It’s okay. It’s a kind of by-the-numbers teen thriller with a bunch of bratty overprivileged teenagers squabbling and possibly murdering each other. I think in some minor state of undress. It’s very much part of that wave of I Know What You Did Last Summer, etc.

Ren Yeah. Is it also about a bottomless hole?

Adam No, that hole does have a bottom. The hole in that film is a lot less intriguing, it’s more of a shaft than a hole, to be honest. There is a hole, but the hole is just where the action takes place. It didn’t earn the title The Hole, which is presumably why there was another film called The Hole, because the filmmakers presumably thought the hole itself needed to be done justice to.

Ren And I think the hole is a very compelling force in this film.

Adam Oh yeah, the hole is the starring vehicle.

Ren It’s not an incidental hole.

Adam It’s got star billing. The Hole: starring The Hole.

(Clip of the trailer for The Hole)

Ren This film starts off with a family moving into a new house in suburban America. There’s a mom and two kids — Dane and Lucas, who are approximately 17 and 8, and we learn that Dane’s a rebellious kid because he says: ‘sheesh’.

Adam He does, and I’ve written down also ‘stinks’, like ‘you stink’. And in a text message early on: ‘this place sux’ with an x.

Ren He’s also wearing a T-shirt of the 2000s band The Killers, which made me laugh. Rebellious teen, listening to the work of Brandon Flowers.

Adam I don’t think Brandon Flowers would want Dane to be part of his fanbase. I know Brandon pretty well, I don’t think he would be keen.

I’ve kind of got over my — for some context, listeners — when Ren and I were at university I had a bit of a thing about Brandon Flowers just because I find his name really funny. There’s no other reason for it, I just like the fact that a self-confessed rock star is called Brandon Flowers.

Ren He’s a sensitive guy.

Adam He’s a sensitive guy. And he has lyrics like: ‘Do you want to come with me, do you want to see my bones? I mean your bones. It’s only natural’.

The lyrics of a sensitive man.

And before we move on from The Killers, since you bought them up, there is a Werner Herzog documentary about The Killers, probably his best work, I don’t think he just did it for money whatsoever, I assume that Werner Herzog is a big Killers fan, just like Dane in the film.

It documents a gig of The Killers, and it also takes place —

Ren Yeah??

Adam Seriously, I’m not making this up! There’s a Werner Herzog documentary about The Killers on YouTube. Which I’ve watched more than any other Werner Herzog film.

Ren You are a connoisseur of film, so.

Adam A large part of it takes place at this bizarre fake ranch in Vegas, which Brandon Flowers talks very earnestly about and how it was important to his childhood, and Werner Herzog tries to very lightly tease him about how it’s all fake, and Brandon Flowers is like: ‘it didn’t seem fake to me, as a kid, it seemed real, growing up in Vegas’. And then Herzog makes him stand in front of this awful animatronic cowboy, and holds the shot for a full minute with Brandon Flowers looking amazingly uncomfortable.

It’s really good. I’ll have to send you the link, because it’s worth watching for that first shot alone.

So anyway, the film’s set up so we know that this teenage Dane is a very rebellious boy because he’s a fan of the infamous band The Killers. Not Slipknot, not System of a Down —

Ren Do you think they didn’t know who The Killers were and just thought they were a metal band based on the name? ‘Ooh, the Killers, pretty hardcore’.

Adam Well, there’s a Mountain Goats song called The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton, and the lyrics refer to a death metal band who considered the names: Satan’s Fingers, The Killers and The Hospital Bombers. And when they play it now, John makes a point of mentioning that some of these names have since been adopted. So who knows, maybe The Killers started out as a death metal band. Not so much Mr Brightside as MR DARKSIDE.

Ren Yeah. Swimming through sick lullabies.

Right, let’s move on.

Adam Let’s move on before it's just an hour of me talking about The Killers.

And I chose this film, in case people are wondering why we’re talking about The Hole from 2009, which pretty much everyone has forgotten about, and it’s because it’s a Joe Dante film. And I’m sure like many listeners I loved Gremlins, more than Gremlins II, which is the correct position to hold, unlike my brother who says that Gremlins II is better. But he also says that season two of Twin Peaks is better than season one, which tells you a lot about my brother’s tastes.

So I love the anarchic madcap energy of Gremlins, I remember Small Soldiers from when I was a kid, and I was just intrigued that Joe Dante had directed another kids horror film as late as 2009. I remember vaguely it coming out at the time, but I didn’t see it. And of course we’ve previously covered Eerie Indiana and some of the most iconic episodes of that were directed by Joe Dante — particularly the ones with the really skewed suburban aesthetic.

Ren Which we don’t really get in this, apart from the hole, obviously, it’s a pretty straightforward suburban aesthetic.

Adam It is, I was expecting much more in the way of warped visuals and exaggerated set design. You get that a bit towards the end of the film, but mostly as you say… it’s got that kind of wintery, over-exposed aesthetic of a lot of 2000s slightly low-budget cinema, so it looks visually slightly dull, a bit televisual I guess. And it only visually comes to life in the last half hour of the film, which I was a bit disappointed by, I was expecting a bit more visual razzmatazz.

But in preparation for this I also watched Explorers, which was a film Joe Dante released a year after Gremlins, and that is much more rooted in an everyday suburban reality, until that is, the last half hour of the film, where they go to space. So structurally this is quite similar to Explorers. But Explorers is a really amicable film, with these really lovely three leads — it’s actually River Phoenix and a young Ethan Hawke, and they’re very charming.

Whereas Dane here is set up as not very charming and likeable, I think it’s fair to say. Would you agree, Ren, as you texted me while watching.

Ren I did text you in the first half hour of this film, saying ‘He’s such a jerk!’. Which I think is fair, that’s what they’re going for.

Adam It is explained later, but yes. He’s quite rough with his younger brother, right —

Ren — Well, yeah, and I don't know if this is a casting issue, but in the beginning their mom’s at work and they’re having to amuse themselves around the house, and Dane’s hitting his little brother around the head because the actor who’s playing Dane —

Adam — Chris Massoglia —

Ren— Yes, Chris Massoglia, he’s obviously a teenager but physically he’s pretty fully grown and tall.

Adam Whereas Nathan Gamble on the other hand —

Ren Nathan Gamble who plays his little brother is a very weedy pre-pubescent, so it doesn’t look quite right, them roughhousing.

Adam Yeah, agreed, it does make it really uncomfortable. And I’m usually not really fussed by swearing in films either way, but the swearing in this film really stood out to me.

Ren Oh yeah? Where’s the swearing?

Adam There’s quite a lot of the older brother swearing and then the younger brother imitating him before their mother tells them off. I think it’s just there to establish that the older brother is going down the wrong tracks and being a bit of a bad influence.

I think it