Movie Review: Spiderhole (2010)

Directed by Daniel Simpson

Starring Amy Noble, Emma Griffiths Malin and George Maguire

Four young art students embark on a mission to find an empty house in London, with the idea of living as squatters, free from the hassles of paying rent and the freedom of partying at their leisure. They soon come across a seemingly abandoned building, cut the lock and despite the fact that the interior is a complete shit hole they decide this is the place to make home. After a night of partying they awaken to find that every entrance into and out of the building has been sealed shut, doors welded and windows barred, with no way out and no way to signal for help. Panic soon overtakes them as they discover they are being toyed with by some type of evil presence. One by one they are gassed and dragged off to some type of operating room by a deranged doctor who likes to pluck out eyeballs and generally make life miserable for his victims. As the movie nears its end we get the obligatory plot twist when our protagonist Molly (played by Amy Noble) finds an old plastic purse containing a key and a girls I.D. She assumes this belonged to a previous victim and uses the key to escape only to find it leads her straight into the killers home. As she is being chased by the decrepit old killer she eventually winds up in a dead-end room where she comes face to face with the owner of the purse and we are let to believe she is eaten by the girl.

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If the plot sounds familiar, it should. You've seen this movie before. Four extremely retarded twenty-somethings gleefully placing themselves into the hands of a deranged killer (even after finding a closet full of blood-soaked clothes they decide things are copasetic enough to hang out for the night.) Because the characters were so under-developed it leaves the viewer pretty much indifferent to their plight and as things start to go downhill for them theres no real reason to cheer them on or hope for their escape. In fact, they spend most of their time crying hysterically in the fetal position, which became annoying to the point where I was actually rooting for the killer to put them all out of their misery as quickly as possible. Occasionally these types of movies can make up for their shortcomings with tension, suspense or just some good old fashioned graphic torture scenes but Spider Hole decided to hold back on all counts. The few torture scenes were curt and shot at bad angles, frustratingly denying the viewer his basic right to atleast feel squeemish. I mean, it IS supposed to be a torture movie, right?

It wasnt a downright horrible movie but it also brought nothing new to the table and the lack of gore pretty much sank this one for me. As a movie fan I believe if you are going to make a movie like this, you must embrace it for what it is and at the very least, give the viewer what they expect from this genre. Dispense with the horribly long build up and give us the goods. Horror fans are very unforgiving of being short-changed, and I felt like Spiderhole sort of pulled a fast one on me.

4 out of 10 Reviewed by KennyB