Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you a horror, thriller film from 2019,
titled The Hole in the Ground. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care.
In Ireland, single mother Sarah and her son Chris move to a house in the countryside to start a
new life. On their way there, Sarah almost hits someone in the middle of the road with her car.
After making sure Chris is alright, Sarah goes to check on the stranger,
who turns out to be Noreen, an elderly woman that keeps on whispering "he's not my son".
Noreen will not answer Sarah's questions, but when she turns around to stare at Chris,
she comes off as very creepy. Sarah decides not to risk it, so she just picks up her car's
broken side-view mirror and drives away with her son. Raising Chris alone is not easy for
Sarah and sometimes they end up arguing over small things like Chris' picky eating habits,
but most of the time, their relationship is solid. Sarah always hugs Chris and tells him he loves
him, they also have their own little game where they make funny faces to make each other laugh.
One day during lunch, Chris cries out because he finds a spider in the kitchen. Sarah catches it
and releases it outside, but Chris does not like this because it means it may come back. Angry,
he mentions his dad would have killed the spider, then asks Sarah why he did not come with them.
It is hard to explain so Sarah just says it is complicated, which makes Chris angrier:
he steps on the spider, calls his mom a liar, and then runs into the woods. Sarah rushes after him,
feeling how the wind blows harder the further she goes, and she is shocked to find something quite
amazing and terrifying at the same time: a very large sinkhole. Before she can decide what to do,
Chris appears behind her and apologizes for bringing up his dad even while knowing it makes
her sad, so Sarah hugs him and takes him away, not wanting him to see the hole. Later that night,
Sarah hears the back door creaking, so she makes sure to lock it before going to bed. Chris begins
going to classes at a new school but he is having trouble making friends. When he is given a flyer
about the school's incoming talent contest, Sarah tells him he should sign up because it would
help him befriend his classmates, but Chris stays hesitant. Later, Sarah attends a dinner party with
some new friends of her own, including her boss Louise, and while everyone shares crazy stories,
she gets to learn about Noreen, who is considered crazy by everyone in town.
One day many years ago, she burst into her son's classroom, screaming and making a scene - it took
three teachers to drag her out. The kid was transferred to another school and Noreen was
sent to a mental institution, but when she got out months later, she ran over her son with her car.
Nobody is sure if it was an accident or on purpose. When she returns home, Sarah
can not sleep, being extremely aware of the wind blowing and all the creaking noises in the house.
Suddenly, a door is banged, so she rushes out of her room to check on Chris, but she does not find
him in his bed or anywhere in the house. Sarah runs downstairs and finds the back door open,
and her worry makes her grab a torch and go looking for the son in the middle of the night.
The forest is dark and creepy at this hour, so Sarah does not last long there:
as soon as she hears some very strange noises, she runs back to the house and calls the police.
However, she hangs up when she suddenly turns around and finds Chris standing by his bedroom
door saying he has been there the whole time. The next day, Sarah goes to see a doctor, who asks her
if she has a history of anxiety and checks the scar on her forehead, a mark left by an accident
that happened a year ago. The doctor decides to prescribe her some sedatives to be taken before
bed. Once she gets home, Sarah is startled when Chris appears in the kitchen a second after she
called him, and this makes her more sure she is having anxiety issues, so she begins taking
the pill before bed. The following morning, she wakes up to find Chris with a bunch of flowers
he has brought from outside. After scolding him for leaving when he is not supposed to,
Sarah accepts the gift and hugs him. The next time Sarah picks Chris at school, she notices
he has made a bunch of friends, including a kid that used to make fun of him. On their way home,
they find Noreen on the road again, and she and Chris cannot stop staring at each other.
Since honking does not work, Sarah gets out of the car to ask Noreen to move only to find
her whispering again: this time she says "it's not your boy". They are suddenly interrupted by
Noreen's husband Des, who apologizes to Sarah for not keeping a better eye on his wife. Noreen takes
advantage of the distraction to walk to the car and start hitting the passenger's window, saying
"it's not your son". She goes as far as hitting her head against the glass to try to break it,
so Sarah wastes no time in driving away as Des grabs his wife to stop her from following them,
although Noreen never stops struggling. The following morning while taking Chris to school,
Sarah decides to stop by Noreen's house only to find her dead on the ground with her head buried
in the dirt. Later, when the police come by her house to take testimony, Sarah notices one of the
cops is distracting Chris by playing arm wrestling with him. For a moment, she thinks she sees Chris
using unnatural strength to win and even breaking the officer's wrist, but it turns out to be just
her imagination. Afterward, Sarah takes a shower and notices her scar is bleeding for some reason.
The next day when Sarah goes back to work, Noreen's death is the first topic to be brought by
Louise. Sarah changes the subject to motherhood, confessing she sometimes looks at Chris and
does not recognize him. As a mother of twins, Louise assures her this is perfectly normal,
just another thing to get used to when your kids grow up so quickly. Later, Sarah attends Noreen's
funeral at her house, where she finds dozens of mirrors hung in every room - for today,
though, they have been covered with black fabric. A grieving Des comes by to share a drink with her,
so Sarah takes the chance to ask why Noreen said Chris was not her son.
Des explains that just what Noreen did - after their son's eighth birthday, she started to see
small changes in the boy's personality and became convinced that he was an impostor. However,
it had not been Noreen that killed the boy, it was Des, who had not seen him on the driveway. Days
pass by and Sarah tries her best to go back to her usual routine. While running through the forest,
she finds Chris' favorite action figure on the ground and decides to check out the sinkhole, from
which incomprehensible whispering can be heard. Later during lunch, Sarah is shocked to see Chris
enthusiastically devour the kind of food he used to hate and decides to confront him about the toy.
Chris denies having left the house, so Sarah shows him the action figure and presses for the truth
until Chris gets angry and pushes the table at her with uncharacteristic strength.
As soon as he realizes what he has done, he apologizes and goes to his room.
When night falls, Sarah hears weird noises coming from Chris' bedroom.
She comes closer to spy on him through the keyhole and the gap under the door, allowing him to see an
alarming scene: Chris is moving around the room on all fours, he also catches a spider
and proceeds to eat it. This is too much for Sarah to handle so she runs back to her bedroom,
and when Chris comes to check on her, she just says good night as usual. The following day,
Sarah takes Chris to the doctor, who does not find anything wrong during the check-up. In private,
Sarah explains Chris' behavior is changing, but the doctor is more concerned about Sarah's mental
health and wonders if her scar was caused by Chris' dad instead of an accident. Afterward,
Sarah decides to buy a video camera that she hides inside a wall in Chris' bedroom.
That night, Sarah decides not to take her pills anymore. In the morning, Chris continues to eat
big amounts of food. Sarah apologizes for her awkwardness lately, and Chris responds by touching
her scar, violently inserting his fingers in it. Thankfully, it turns out to be just a nightmare.
In the afternoon, Sarah goes to see the talent show at Chris' school.
His class is performing as a choir, and their chosen song speaks about a hole in a bog.
Suddenly, the room becomes dark and everyone around them disappears - Sarah is left
alone with Chris on the stage, who is now reciting the lyrics in an emotionless voice.
Sarah runs away from the hall but she can not find an open door to leave the building too.
Louise finds her and asks her what is wrong, to which Sarah responds Chris is not her son.
Speaking of Chris, he arrives at that moment with his teacher, so Sarah runs away again.
This time she does manage to leave the building and return home, where she retrieves the video
camera to check the footage. What she finds there is rather terrifying, so deciding she will need
a second opinion, she goes to see Des. The man welcomes her to his house again and explains all
the mirrors were hung by Noreen because only mirrors can reveal the truth and she always
wanted to be sure her husband was the real one. Sarah shows him the footage saying whatever was
wrong with Des' son is now happening to Chris too, but Des does not want to admit his son had
had a problem and throws the camera on the floor, breaking it. Des refuses to admit he saw anything,
but he will not call Sarah crazy either. Sarah returns home to rescue the SD card from the
camera, and Chris is already here waiting for her. He does not like being left alone,
so Sarah explains she ran because she was not feeling well, which earns her a hug from her son.
Later during dinner, it is revealed that Sarah has been putting the sedatives in Chris' food, and now
once again, he eats another dish he used to hate. After the meal is done, Sarah asks Chris to play
their favorite game, but obviously Chris does not remember it. Sarah tells him he is not her son,
so the shapeshifter wearing Chris' face growls and attacks her, throwing her around the kitchen
a couple of times until she is knocked out. A few minutes later, Sarah wakes up to find
the creature dragging her through the ground to bury her head like it had happened to Noreen.
Fortunately, the sedatives kick in then and the creature passes out, so Sarah does not get
covered with too much dirt and manages to escape on her own. She takes Chris back to the house and
leaves him on the basement floor before using the broken side-view mirror to check his face,
revealing the creature's horrifying lack of features. The monster wakes up then and attacks
Sarah again, but even with extra strength, it is easy for her to push off a kid's body.
As the shapeshifter begins to emit a demonic screech, Sarah goes upstairs and locks the door.
Now the creature is off her back, Sarah can concentrate on getting back the real Chris.
She grabs a flashlight and runs to the forest, where she approaches the sinkhole and lets it
swallow her down until she is dropped inside an underground tunnel. The space is very narrow,
but Sarah makes an effort to crawl through it anyway until she comes out inside a bigger cavern.
There she finds a bunch of human bones, but also an unconscious Chris who she quickly picks
up to take with her. At that moment, Sarah also discovers they are not alone: a bunch of faceless
creatures is now waking up and getting ready to go after her. The tunnel is even harder to go through
while dragging a kid, but at least that also means only one creature can enter it at a time.
This shapeshifter manages to grab Sarah's wrist, allowing it to copy her face,
but Sarah hits it with her flashlight until she is freed. Once they are out of the hole,
Sarah checks on Chris and confirms he is still alive when he wakes up.
They rush back to their home, and Sarah approaches the car, but the doors are locked.
After leaving Chris next to the vehicle, Sarah enters the house to grab her keys and hears the
fake Chris in the basement calling for her. There is only one thing she can do now to escape safely:
she sets the house on fire before leaving with his son in the car. Many weeks later,
mother and son have started a new, happy life in the city. Sarah is always taking pictures
of Chris to double-check his face, and their new home has dozens of mirrors on every wall.