The Hole in the Ground
A24 | Release Date: March 1, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The GuardianMike McCahillFeb 28, 2019
It always finds new, invariably cinematic ways to nudge us towards its final leap into the abyss. Cronin feels like a real find for our especially insecure moment. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChuck BowenFeb 25, 2019
The film gradually becomes something more than a mixtape of horror gimmicks as it homes in on a frightening real-world subtext. Read full review
70
Film ThreatNorman GidneyFeb 2, 2019
The Hole In the Ground surprised me, took me on a fun ride, and returned me, almost unshaken. This was a brilliantly satisfying monster movie. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinFeb 2, 2019
[It] will evoke comparisons for many with The Babadook, and while this is more generically conventional than Jennifer Kent's breakout thriller, it still taps potently into parental anxieties and primal fears. Read full review
70
Screen DailyDemetrios MatheouFeb 2, 2019
There’s a freshness to the characterisations, a good eye, and for a time Cronin constructs a tense guessing game as to whether it’s mental breakdown or supernatural forces at play. Read full review
70
VarietyGuy LodgeFeb 2, 2019
[Cronin's] trim, jumpy debut feature rewrites no genre rules, but abounds in bristly calling-card atmospherics. ... Only in the film’s muddy-in-all-senses finale — which leaves a few too many dots unjoined, even by forgiving genre standards — does its grip on proceedings slip a notch. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerMar 4, 2019
The Hole in the Ground is filled with all the tropes of the "sinister child" subgenre, but first time feature director Cronin (best known in horror circles for his 2013 award-winning short "Ghost Train") deftly weds it with the same rural Gothic sensibilities that have made Irish horror such a vibrant and unsettling scene for the last few years. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyDana SchwartzMar 1, 2019
The Hole in the Ground never seeks to differentiate itself from the established horror movie aesthetic: we get creepy jangling lullaby music, a decrepitly old hooded women mumbling to herself ominously, bare feet on creaking wooden floors, broken mirrors. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloFeb 26, 2019
Parental anxiety has long been fertile ground for horror, going back to "The Bad Seed" and "The Exorcist," and The Hole In The Ground finds a somewhat fresh angle on the possessed-kid subgenre. Read full review
60
CineVueJohn BleasdaleMar 1, 2019
The script by Cronin and Stephen Shields blends the familiar with the eerie well and never allows silliness to take over. The performances all round are superb and Seána Kerslake creates a credible heroine – a woman on the edge but who is by no means fragile. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 28, 2019
Somewhere in the specifics of Cronin’s is-he-or-isn’t-he scenario – played with gripping detail by Kerslake and Markey – there’s a decent little midnight chiller. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesNoel MurrayFeb 28, 2019
It’s always welcome to see a chiller that builds suspense from ideas and characters — and where the beasts from beyond are almost beside the point. Read full review
60
EmpireKim NewmanFeb 26, 2019
A soft-spoken yet chilling domestic horror film that tells its slightly overfamiliar tale effectively, with strong performances, quietly disturbing atmosphere, one or two friendly clichés, and good, old- fashioned scares. Read full review
58
The PlaylistJordan RuimyFeb 4, 2019
Even as an homage The Hole in the Ground feels like business as usual rather imbuing the genre with a much-needed modern edge or new context. Read full review
50
The New York TimesTeo BugbeeFeb 28, 2019
In a film where the central horror is the otherworldly absence of personality, the intended fear is undermined by the presence of a mother and son whose flawlessness is itself unnerving. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comNick AllenJan 29, 2019
This is a story that errs toward the familiar instead of embracing strangeness, its freaky kid becoming the distraction when you just want more time with the hole in the ground. Read full review
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