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THE HOLE
Cowboy Films, Granada Film and Impact Pictures
for Pathé Pictures
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Prod: Lisa Bryer, Jeremy Bolt, Pippa Cross; Dir: Nick Hamm; Scr: Ben Court, Caroline Ip, based on the novel by Guy Burt; Ph: Denis Crosan; Prod des: Eve Stewart; Cost des: Verity Hawkes; Ed: Niven Howie; Mus: Clint Mansell.
With Thora Birch (Liz), Embeth Davidtz (Dr Philippa Harwood), Desmond Harrington (Mike), Daniel Brocklebank (Martin), Laurence Fox (Geoff), Keira Knightley (Frankie).
International distribution:
Pathé Distribution.
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Once the decision had been taken to tell the story from two different angles - Liz’s repressed version and the truth - all the underground aspects of The Hole were adjusted accordingly. The above-ground scenes were shot at Downside, a neo-Gothic boarding school near Bath. But the bunker was built at Bray Studios in North London - or rather, was built twice.
Thora Birch as Liz, who proves to be the key to the catastrophe.
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“It was crucial that we believe in the first, fantasy version of the hole so that, when we learn what really happened, it comes as a huge shock,” says Hamm. “The fantasy version is Enid Blyton, about cooking bangers on the fire and telling ghost stories. The real version is more Marilyn Manson, about taking drugs, getting drunk and having sex. The first is much brighter, with wider shots and wider lenses. The second is about low angles, edgier framing and dark corners.”
As constructed by production designer Eve Stewart, the second version is a subtly smaller, dirtier, more threatening version of the first - more hell-hole than hidey-hole. And cinematographer Denis Crosan likewise adopted different approaches to filming each version.
“In the first,” he says, “we wanted to give the impression that the place had been used quite recently, so we used fluorescent lights which gradually die out as the film progresses, and then torchlight. In the second, we wanted a much darker ambience, so we thought of car headlights which could have been dumped there. These give out a tungsten light and, when they run out, we used mainly candles. It made the second hole a much darker, more foreboding place.”
Appearing alongside Birch, all of the other cast members - with the obvious exception of Schindler’s List star Embeth Davidtz as the psychiatrist - are relative newcomers. Geoff, the good-natured rugby player, is played by Laurence Fox, the latest member of the acting dynasty, who is still a student at RADA. Bronx-born Desmond Harrington plays Mike, the gorgeously good-looking son of a rock star for whom Liz has an unrequited passion. Frankie, the most beautiful girl in the school - Mike’s girlfriend, Liz’s nemesis - is played by Keira Knightley, a teenager taking her first major role, whom Hamm describes as “a young Julie Christie”. And the sinister Martin is played by Daniel Brocklebank, who was the male Juliet in the play-within-a-film in Shakespeare in Love.
Frankie
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Hamm and his writers recognised that the 1999 hit The Blair Witch Project - conceived some five years after Guy Burt’s novel was published - had changed the nature of teenage horror movies (as well as bearing a superficial resemblance to the plot of The Hole). So they were determined to take both the story and the movie into areas unexplored by either the book or previous teen horror flicks.
“The Hole gave us a chance to do an edgier version of the teens-in-peril genre,” concludes Hamm. “This isn’t just another teen thriller: it moves the genre in a new direction. The difference with this film is where the source of the horror lies - and that remains ambiguous until the final act.”
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