The last few years have seen a resurgence in horror films that deal with motherhood, including The Babadook (2014), Hereditary (2018), The Prodigy (2019), and most recently, A24 Studio’s Irish film The Hole in the Ground, which generally works with familiar tropes but includes stellar performances from its leads, masterful cinematography, and references to classic horror/sci-fi films, most notably Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It’s a slow-creep monster movie that centers around a woman trying to keep it together, while raising her son.

Directed by Lee Cronin, the film contains a simple but efficient plot: Sarah O’Neill (Seana Kerslake) tries to escape her broken past and moves with her son,  Chris (Jame Quinn Markey), from the city to the countryside. Not much is stated about Sarah’s past, other than she used to teach and her ex gave her a cut on her forehead. We never see her ex, and no flashbacks are presented to flesh out the backstory. We just know, from the outset, that Sarah is trying to move on with her life. Yet, her decision to move to a drastically different location triggers the start of the narrative and angers Chris, who tells his mom that she took him away from his father.

Sarah played by Seana Kerslake

The film is a slow-burn, one heavy on atmosphere,  especially dim lighting, gray tones, and the engulfing forest surrounding their new home. One of the film’s first scares occurs when a creepy elderly neighbor played by Kati Outinen tells Sarah  that Chris isn’t her son. Not long after that, Chris  disappears one night and then reappears in the house after Sarah searched everywhere for him. Yet, his appearance and actions seem different.  His mother presses her ear to his bedroom door and hears him growling and making other animal-like noises. Eventually, she becomes convinced that he isn’t her son.

In the last act, Sarah approaches the edge of the forest and the hole in the ground, where she encounters strange, alien-like creatures. The premise that they can take over humans and use them as a host is a nice call-back to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, while the creatures themselves and the shots of Sarah crawling under ground in tight spaces resemble The Descent, which has Earth-based, cave-dwelling monsters that aren’t too dissimilar from what’s presented in The Hole in the Ground.

The image of a hole occurs throughout the film, through a coffee mug, water draining in a sink, and eventually the gaping hole in the forest. There are a lot of ways to interpret this image. Perhaps Sarah feels that she’s going to be consumed and swallowed by her shattered past, the abuse of her last relationship, and the struggles of raising a child on her own. Moving on from the past also altered and strained her relationship with her son. It caused them to see each other differently. The forest and hole loom larger as the film progresses and the relationship between the mother and son grows more fractious.

The Hole in the Ground  is a solid horror film that takes its time with its scares, using its all-consuming atmosphere to build dread and illustrate Sarah’s struggles and insecurities. No doubt horror fans will appreciate the nods to other staples in the genre. More importantly, the film explores the difficulties a single mom faces moving on from an abusive relationship and upending her son’s life, though necessary. The Hole in the Ground doesn’t do anything that different with the usual tropes, but it’s one of the year’s most solid horror entries so far, buoyed by strong performances and the cinematography.

The film is currently available to rent and stream on Amazon Prime. Lionsgate plans to release it on DVD in late April.