The Hole in the Ground film review: An intense psychological horror that plays on our fears of motherhood
This suffocating psychological horror sits alongside the likes of The Babadook and Hereditary in a wave of movies that take our fears of rearing offspring and makes them terrifyingly solid, Rosemary’s Baby or The Exorcist for the 21st century.
Seána Kerslake plays Sarah, a single mother who moves to a small Irish village with her young son Chris. Her new neighbours include a creepy old lady who’s rumoured to have murdered her child during a bout of what we assume to be schizophrenia.
Before long Sarah begins to unravel, suffering from crippling bouts of insomnia and terrifying lucid daydreams, eventually questioning if the boy in her home is really her son (and wondering what else he might be).
Painting in a woody palette of brown and grey, director Lee Cronin creates an atmosphere of intense claustrophobia, slowly ratcheting up the tension rather than resorting to jump scares. He drip-feeds vaguely disturbing imagery, leaning heavily into the idea that ‘aren’t all kids basically monsters?’
There are virtually no special effects, bar the titular hole in the ground – a big ol’ sinkhole – representing the psychological pit into which Sarah descends. It’s properly anxiety-inducing stuff, in the best possible way.