The Hole

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * )

From the exterior, The Hole might seem like just another teen horror. After all, the opening scene has a bedraggled Thora Birch limping down a country lane to a pay phone only to deliver an especially piercing scream.

You might think that won't be the last you hear of that particular shriek and that it will return with formulaic monotony.

But this tidy little British psychological thriller, which casts the ever-sullen Birch (the daughter in American Beauty) as an English teen toff at a co-ed boarding school, is smarter than that and more duplicitous.

Though it's not without some distracting flaws, including too many actors on the wrong side of 20 playing apparently parent-free but privileged teens. And you just have to go along with the central premise - that four private school students wanting to avoid a geography field trip would camp out for a weekend in a Second World War bomb shelter (and one which still has the power and water connected) near their leafy alma mater. Doing a bunker, then.

Of course, as Birch's opening squeal indicates, the subterranean excursion ends in much awfulness and the police trying to piece together what exactly happened. Based on Guy Burt's novel After The Hole, the film relies heavily on flashbacks generated by sessions between Birch's Liz and Davidtz's school counsellor.

Obviously, all is not what it might seem. And unrequited love lies at the root of the trouble (but is it Liz's for American student Mike, or resident nerd Martin's for Liz?).

Add a fine central performance by Birch, and a certain amount of storytelling sleight of hand, and The Hole turns out to be a smart little chiller that, while not as scary or profound as it likes to think it is, should at least appeal to both teen-scare fans who are wanting something fresh and those of more, er, underground tastes.

Cast: Thora Birch, Desmond Harrington, Keira Knightley, Laurence Fox, Daniel Brocklebank, Embeth Davidtz
Director: Nick Hamm

Rating: R16

Running time: 102 mins

Screening: Rialto