A desperate game of survival unfolds after a young boy decides to hold his family captive in an unfinished bunker. A film by Pascual Sisto, starring Charlie Shotwell, Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Ehle, and Taissa Farmiga.

John (Charlie Shotwel) lives with his parents, Brad (Michael C. Hall) and Anna (Jennifer Ehle), and his older sister Laurie (Taissa Farmiga). John is a curious young boy who often asks odd questions. Sometimes, even the adults have trouble explaining his questions or they do not know the correct answers, such as “Why does the water in the pool not feel like real water?” Why do some people have nut allergies when nuts are a naturally occurring substance? How does one grow up and stop acting like a child? What it’s like to be an adult?

When do you stop being a kid?

John receives a drone as a gift, leading him to discover a concrete hole in the nearby woods. When he asks his parents about it, they tell him it’s an unfinished bunker that was left behind during construction due to some unknown issues.

Why does the water in the pool not feel like real water?

Driven by a desire to comprehend adulthood, John experiments by mixing sleeping pills into lemonade and give the concoction to Charlie (Lucien Spelman), a gardener his mother hired, in order to determine the appropriate dosage for inducing sleep in adults.

What it’s like to be an adult?

That night, John secretly drugs his parents and sister. And while they slumber deeply, he carefully transports their bodies to the unfinished bunker in the woods.

Why people are allergic to nuts when nuts are a natural thing?

The film cuts to a scene of Lily (Samantha LeBretton), a young girl, asking her mother Gloria (Georgia Lyman), to tell her a story of “John and the Hole”. This scene reveals that the story the viewer has just watched for nearly thirty minutes is, in fact, a story that a mother tells her daughter, which could be either fiction or reality. If it is fiction, the viewer may overlook certain unrealistic elements of the story, such as how a thirteen-year-old boy is able to carry adults much larger than him down into the bunker without any difficulty, or the unconvincingly strange behavior of the family members.

I was a balloon. A blue balloon. Filled with blue air. I floated. The sun was blue. The sky was blue. Nobody could see me in the blue sky. I was blue in the blue.

John’s family wakes up in the bunker, trapped with no means of escape. The only way in and out is a ladder. Initially, they believe they have been kidnapped and held captive in the bunker. When they notice John isn’t there, they get really worried something bad has happened to him. Eventually, they learn that John is the one who brought them down there.

John’s reasons for his actions are still unclear, even though his parents are trying to figure them out or see if he’s being forced into anything. He stays calm and indifferent, looking down at them from the top of the bunker and only offering food, water, and blankets.

JOHN AND THE HOLE features breathtaking cinematography, amazing color palettes, and meticulous framing by cinematographer Paul Özgür. He does an excellent job of capturing the beauty and creepiness of the film’s setting, from the lush woods surrounding the bunker to the stark interior of the bunker itself. His use of color brilliantly creates a strong atmosphere and sense of tension.

The film’s score, composed by French composer Nicolas Becker is equally impressive. It’s both haunting and beautiful, perfectly complementing the visuals on screen. Becker’s music transports viewers into the filmmaker’s carefully crafted world while also generating suspense and unease.

Nicolas Becker is a highly acclaimed French composer and sound engineer. He won the Academy Award for Best Sound for the film Sound of Metal in 2021 and is known for his sound design work on films like Gravity, Oxygène, Micmacs, and Sound of Metal. Becker has frequently collaborated with directors like David Cronenberg, Christopher Nolan, Guillermo del Toro, and Alfonso Cuarón. He is known for his meticulous and immersive approach to sound design, often recording custom sounds for each project and building his own microphone setups tailored to each film, intertwining his work with contemporary art.

The cast delivers impressive performances, and the slow-burn pacing and nested narrative structure, seamlessly integrated to leave viewers grappling to distinguish reality from fiction. This invites people to come up with different ideas about what it all means. But if you’re hoping for a scary version of Home Alone or the same kind of violence as We Need to Talk About Kevin, you might end up feeling let down.

Directed by Spanish filmmaker Pascual Sisto in his directorial debut, JOHN AND THE HOLE is a coming-of-age psychological thriller adapted from the short story “El Pozo” (“The Well”) by Nicolás Giacobone, the Argentinian writer who won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the 2014 film Birdman. Giacobone also wrote the screenplay for this film.

Pascual Sisto is a Spanish filmmaker and visual artist, born in 1975 in Ferrol, Spain. He is known for his innovative approach to storytelling and visual aesthetics, with his works exhibited in prestigious international galleries and museums, including the Pompidou Center and the Venice Biennale. Sisto graduated from the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California, and later earned a master’s degree in media arts from the University of California.

The film was part of the official selection for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival, which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

JOHN AND THE HOLE premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on 29 January 2021, by IFC Films. it was theatrically released in the United States on 6 August.