31 Days of Halloween: The Hole in the Ground

2019, Lee Cronin (Ghost Train) -- Netflix

Faery Tale, Fairy Tale, Fae, Fey, Fairies and Faeries. All the myriad spellings and mispellings I use to refer to the little folk of UK mythos. While watching The Hole in the Ground I could not help but think back to The Hallow from our 2016 run, about a black fungus goo that takes over people, but made a thin connection to the Fae and changelings, and the taking & replacing of children. Most of my fey posts are going to be more fantasy related, but every so often someone does something to connect horror to faery tales, and not in the Grimm Bros sense, but in an exploration of the ancient sources of what could have eventually evolved into the typical fairy worth being avoided.

Sarah (Seána Kerslake, Creation Stories) has moved to the country with her son Christopher, to an older house on the edge of an old forest - well as old as Ireland can get. But still, tall stands of pines loom on the horizon (as only forests in horror movies can) and its the sort of place you shouldn't wander at night, even if there aren't any predators left in Ireland. She has had a rough go at it, an abusive husband and having to leave a life behind. There must be an entire sub-genre of single mothers moving to the country to escape toxic men; sad it exists enough to be a trope.

Things start up when Sarah finds the titular big fucking hole in the ground, off the beaten path, in the forest. This is the kind of sink hole that you call the authorities about. Its massive, swallowing up everything for about fifty feet, and still sucking down soil and trees. But no, she just ponders it nervously, and tells Chris to never go into the forest by himself.

We also get a sub-plot about the local crazy lady, a neighbour, who was said to have "accidentally" run over her son after claiming he was no longer her son. Changelings and a hole in the ground, perhaps what was once a mound? Yup, Unseelie abound!

Eventually Chris must wander into the forest he shouldn't have, as what shows up next is a well enunciating, attentive and well behaving boy -- not Christopher. He also makes frienthds easily, which is something boys in these movies never do. Very very quickly Sarah figures things out, freaks out in public and challenges the kid. Changeling Chris does not handle it well, tossing mommy around like a rag doll. But she has drugged him, and is able to lock him up in the cellar before he can kill her.

And now she has to check out the hole. Seriously? I get that she needs to find real Christopher, but its been days, if not a week or more. The poor kid, if at the bottom of that hole, is likely DEAD. Also, evil fairies? I would think him eaten. But nope, she jumps into the hole and is sucked into the slimy underground where she finds her half-buried son. She drags him out, chased by more of the ugly not-human creatures, escapes, but not before she sees one wearing her face.

The last little bit of the movie is just a "she escaped! happy ending!" that ignores all the realistic things that would have happened after she pulled her son out of a hole in the ground. She's back in the city, things are happier, Christopher is alive and well. I get that these movies always have to solidify the happy ending, but this all seemed so tacked on.

But still, this was a fun, if not novel, little film. But considering the role the hole (hee) played in the movie, I wish it had been... more addressed.