Fear and nostalgia don't often go hand in hand, but the two were riding high in my mind after the screening of The Hole. Coulrophobia, or a fear of clowns, seems to be quite a common phobia amongst my peers and for 99% of us it can be traced back to a certain television show. The Sky One adaptation of Stephen King's It, which aired in 1990. It's main antagonist, a clown named Pennywise, gave me my first real post-horror-film sleepless night. Up to that point the only fear-inducing villains I had been exposed to were Darth Vader and the Wicked Witch of the West. But a samurai robot and a middle-aged woman in green make-up didn't seem quite so scary after watching the terrifying killer clown. Echoes of Pennywise are evident in the ghoulish Jester doll of The Hole. The fact that Joe Dante brings us a family film that manages to instill some levels of discomfort and even fear in adults reminds us why he was such a big name in the 80's. With The Hole, the man behind Gremlins and The 'Burbs goe's back to what he does best; frightening yet family friendly. And he almost succeeds in giving us another great kids film. Almost.

Featuring the aforementioned Jester doll, the corpse of a young girl and some Beetlejuice like nightmare sequences, there are a lot of horror elements of the film to like. These elements are executed well and the use of some traditional stop-motion special effects gave the film an endearing charm. However all of this just served to highlight how awful the 3D was. The digital effect only served to ruin what would otherwise have been a great thowback-to-the-80's look. I ended up watching the second half of The Hole with my Roy Orbison style specs removed.

In my experience, and a lot of people I've discussed it with, the novelty of 3D lasts for roughly the first ten minutes of a film. Afterwards it simply distracts from whats going on and tends to blur any action above a certain speed. It adds nothing to the vast majority of the films released in the format and ultimately becomes headache inducing. Let's hope it's just a Smell-O-Vision style fad that fades away sooner rather than later.

The storyline of The Hole is in no way original and the dialogue is ridiculously bad at times, but on the whole it had a certain charisma about it. Had this been released when I was between eight and twelve years of age it may have been a favourite of mine, along with Ghostbusters and two of Dante's other works Innerspace and Gremlins. It pushes the boundaries of whats acceptable in a film rated 12A, is nicely stylised and has genuinely frightening moments. For a certain age group in years to come, The Hole will evoke great memories of how much fun the cinema can be. If they happen to see a 2D version, all the better.

Gremlins remains one of my favourite films from childhood, and it is thanks to Joe Dante who helmed the films with enough to keep it frightening, yet kid friendly and family oriented at the same time. It's been a long while since I've missed Small Soldiers on the big screen, that he now returns with The Hole, yet dabbling with a similar treatment of making it quite the entertaining romp for both young and old to sit through.

A pity about the 3D version though, as I opted to watch this in 2D, and clearly because of the 3D gimmick, there were a few needless scenes stuck in, like having a kid throw a baseball toward the screen while lying on his back on his bed. On the whole there weren't too many deliberate 3D shots designed for the film, though I thought that the special effects put into it were spiffy enough, especially since there was a good mix of traditional stop motion efforts deliberate done in a cheesy manner, and those of the modern money shots toward the end.

As it's family oriented, this film like the rest of what Dante did thus far, has family being in the centre of all things that trip up in the dark, and we get three stories put into one, by virtue of each character having to deal with their fears come alive. Written by Mark L. Smith (Vacancy), the narrative keeps you guessing exactly what the reason is behind the threats are as faced by each child/teenage lead in the Thompson brothers Dane (Chris Massoglia) and Lucas (Nathan Gamble), and their neighbour Julie (Haley Bennett) when they look down the cursed hole, found in the new home of the Thompsons.

The idea is pretty cool in itself, because what could spook you more than what's truly your greatest fear? However that itself served up a mixed bag of scares, because the scares here are customized to the character's. For instance, Lucas has to deal with something straight out of Child's Play, although this little thingamajig had a small scene as a stinger after the end credits (well, if you have to know, it's only a wink, so you didn't miss much if you failed to stay behind). For Julie, it has to deal with a guilt from the past that manifest itself as something spiritual, and to face one's guilt is something that takes up her story arc.

For Dane's however, it was kept under wraps until the last, which provided for a fitting finale with all the bells and whistles thrown in, dealing with how the magnitude of one's problems when young seem to shrink in size as we grow older, possibly because we may either have outgrown it, or that being older we have a lot more other concerns to deal, in his case, the growing into a surrogate paternal role over the care of his younger brother, in a single parent family.

Still, despite being a horror/thriller, this is still something that will find a broad appeal, being somewhat simple in its stories, but nothing less than effective and of course for those catching it in 3D, yet another film to provide you that fixation with putting on the glasses. I'm not quite sure if a sequel would be made given the way it ended with a plot thread so glaringly hanging out, but we know how Gremlins 2 went.

I do like this sort of film, but The Hole just didn't much for me. I did like the concept, I liked how it started as it showed a lot of promise and I did like some of the photography and scenery. However, The Hole very quickly goes downhill about twenty five minutes or so in. The effects are largely inconsistent, some are decent, but some look very amateurish and distract. When it comes to the scares, some scenes did have atmosphere, but while there were times where I did jump nothing really stood out as memorable let alone scary for me. The script is very clichéd, illogical and weak, the direction is surprisingly poor considering it was the same Joe Dante who lent a hand in the brilliant Gremlins and the story when the film itself meanders becomes predictable and silly. The acting is terrible, and because of how clichéd and unlikeable they were I just couldn't connect to the characters. Overall, liked the premise but it peters out quickly sadly. 3/10 Bethany Cox