Hole (2025) by Dejan Babosek

Director: Dejan Babosek

Year: 2025

Country: Slovenia

Alternate Titles: Jama

Genre: Supernatural

Plot:

Desperate for a quick payday, desperate criminals break into the lavish mansion of a wealthy couple and start to rob the place, but when they try to dispose of the body in the woods after an accident, they find that it’s disappeared and must search the woods for their target to stop everything.

Review:

Overall, this was a fairly solid and generally likable grindhouse throwback. Among the better elements of this one comes from the fun setup that manages to bring about the kind of starting point to the shenanigans. The first half here gives their exploits a decent enough grounding so that the whole thing comes off with a sense of their gruesome intentions as they select their next target and set a plan in motion to rob her, which starts everything on a strong note by leading into the plan to see it fulfilled and how it backfires. Requiring them to dispose of a body they didn’t plan on and the trek into the woods to do only for that to go haywire when the body disappears from under their noses and they are forced to combat the elements and their own bungling nature to recover their prize and carry out their plan.

That is accomplished nicely with a strong series of cat-and-mouse survival thriller encounters that are immensely fun by enhancing the resourcefulness of their victim and the relentlessness of the captors. Trying and failing to recapture her because of the last-ditch efforts to get away and protect herself, this comes off with a strong series of scenes throughout the woods where they’re trapped together, even before the elements take over. The hints that something supernatural is in the woods with them, forcing everything along, make for a great sense of blurred reality where it’s impossible to tell if they’re really being targeted by outside forces or are just imagining things due to their frustration and panic. With the brutal finale making good use of their deranged state as well as the brutal weaponry used, these manage to hold this one up.

There are some drawbacks to be had here, which hold this down. The major issue with the film is the rather slow beginning, where it’s simply hard to keep track of the purpose behind the pair’s venture into the dark side of crime. With these early scenes focusing mostly on the need for robbery and petty crimes like that, the whole thing, resorting to kidnapping and attempted murder, feels like a massive step up that doesn’t feel earned from how they operated before, without any kind of proper build-up. There’s also the strange issue where the finale manages to be designed way too much around weapon-dropping and failing to press the upper hand when they have the advantage, simply to keep the movie going along, which all come together to bring it down.

Overview: ***/5

A generally solid if sluggish vampire feature, there’s enough to enjoy here that manages to keep the film going, while being undone by its massive flaws that are more than enough to hold it back. Those with an appreciation of this kind of genre fare or who don’t mind the flaws will have the most to like, while most others out there should heed caution.