Film Review – John and the Hole

Pascual Sisto makes his directorial debut with “John and the Hole,” and he’s elected to try his luck with a disturbing story about imprisonment and exploration, mixing casual horrors with a darkly comedic approach. Sisto is playing in the same sandbox as noted provocateurs Yorgos Lanthimos and Michael Haneke, but he tries to bend the material his own way, working with a screenplay by Nicolas Giacobone, which is an adaptation of a short story. Such limited dramatic origins are evident throughout “John and the Hole,” which is filled with thousand-yard stares and character stand-offs, but Sisto finds a way to make the stillness of the movie work in his favor, erecting an eerie and somewhat understandable tale of extreme teenage rebellion that becomes something of a psychological and storytelling puzzle as it unfolds. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com