The Best Cavernous Holes in Horror, Ranked
Rory Doherty
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Pits. Wells. Crevices. Holes, if you will. The abyss is a scary yet tantalizing concept. Famously, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche told us, “When you gaze long into the abyss… The abyss gazes also into you.” The rest of the quote is seldom included, which goes on to elaborate, “Also watch out for freaky shit down there.”
BFHs (Big F***ing Holes) are a staple of horror stories, always imprinting a sense of an unknown, unsettling oblivion—which for those who aren’t aware, is incredibly cool. What could lie at the bottom of that darkness? Would we ever be recovered if we were to fall into it? Are we just to be abandoned to our own starvation? Or even worse, our own consciousness? It doesn’t matter if you’re scared of falling, the dark, or venturing into the layer of terrible creatures. There are cavernous holes for everyone! (Sneaky The Enigma of Amigara Fault reference.)
7. The Hole in the Ground
It’s a shame this Irish doppelganger/creepy kid chiller ranks at the bottom, as it features the most quintessential, plain-faced pits of everything on the list. There is a hole in the ground, and within it lies creepiness. When a single mother moves into the countryside, her young boy’s return from the titular sinkhole marks an eerie shift in his behavior. From there, his pointedly off demeanor provokes her own psychological unwinding. So it’s a shame we spend so much time going down a predictable route with a too-clinical directing style. When we do finally venture into the hole’s earthy, flashlight-lit depths, it proves a rewarding journey—because what’s scarier than being trapped in a big hole is that someone else wearing your face is allowed to emerge.
6. The Descent
What are caves but lots of tiny, interlocking holes? Alright, it’s cheating to include everything that happens in Neil Marshall’s exemplary cave demon horror on this list. So instead, we’ll focus on the chilling ending (as it appears in both versions), which is actually an ascent. Spelunker Sarah is the only survivor of a hellish siege by prehistoric cave dwellers, and has succumbed to a suitably punishing madness. She sees natural light come from above and climbs an incline of bones in order to finally reclaim her freedom and safety. Regardless of which ending you watch (the original ending shows this was all a delusion, she’s still trapped underground), her madness stays with her in everything we see outside the cave. Marshall shows that not only can the abyss be terrifying, you then bring its darkness with you wherever you go.
5. The Silence of the Lambs
The Silence of the Lambs has been subject to legitimate and extensive criticism since its release for its depiction of a transgender character as a mentally ill serial killer. But one thing that can’t age badly is the terror of being trapped in a dark well. There’s not even the relief of daylight coming from above. Buffalo Bill’s prison cell of choice is already underground, adding to the horrific disorientation and lingering fear. It’s not until a lightbulb is cast over the damp stone walls does our prisoner realize she’s surrounded by the bloody claw marks of previous victims’ escape attempts. The pit is much scarier without the hope of getting out of your own volition.
4. Doctor Who, S2E9/10 “The Impossible Planet” & “The Satan Pit”
We’ve now moved onto the obligatory “things that terrified me as an 8-year-old” part of the list. The reboot of a classic British staple has successfully blended sci-fi with horror many times now. But one of its most successful and blistering attempts came with this Season 2 two-parter. There, a stable planet in the middle of a black hole’s orbit holds a mysterious, seemingly unending pit that, wouldn’t you know, leads straight to the actual Devil.
This is where we start getting into the good shit, cavernous holes-wise. There’s a lot of contemplative talking as the Doctor is lowered into the impossibly deep pit, as he and the science officer who joins him out loud acknowledge the thrill and fear of leaping into the abyss. Is it a leap, or a fall? An action or a submission? Who’s really in control in a big pit? The Doctor isn’t one to rely on theoretical interpretations, sometimes you’ve got to experience that mad rush yourself.
3. The Fall
A startlingly small amount actually happens in this short film from Under the Skin director Jonathan Glazer, especially for how much dread the piece conjures up. Over six minutes, we watch a creepily masked mob shake their victim from up a tree, and pose for photographs with their prize. Then, he’s released from the gallows down an impossibly deep hole. The camera rests on the rope descending at a breakneck pace for a punishingly long time, before we see the victim splayed across the stone walls, balancing himself precariously above the darkness beneath.
For an exercise in creepiness about a fall to abyssal depths, the emotional crux of Glazer’s film is how, despite the impossibility of his endeavor, the victim takes no pause before he starts climbing back up to freedom. Will he make it? Unlikely, but the courage to try is surprisingly resonant.
2. The Pit
What horrors lie in the pit?! (Little goblin men.) What do they want?! (Meat, living flesh, etc.) How are they going to get it?! (A perverted young man is keen to help.) This weirdo Canadian B-movie has a clear, if wobbly, thematic throughline about a pre-teen’s burgeoning, twisted sexuality combined with his childlike outsider personality that—creates the goblins? Summons them? Wills them into existence? As I say, wobbly. But here, our cavernous hole is clearly, inextricably tied to our protagonist’s journey. It’s an extension of the hidden parts of his desires and consciousness, one that demands feeding until it takes over. It’s a ropey, oddball gem with potent questions. Mainly: What if darkness has already stared into someone before they looked into the abyss?
1. Onibaba
A lot of great horror stories center on the power and impact of being scared. But what Onibaba suggests is that there is also power in the inclusion of a big hole. The Japanese folk-parable-ghost story is set mostly in a field of tall grass, where an impoverished mother and daughter-in-law are submerged in sweltering heat and buzzing air. They survive by selling the armor and weapons of samurai they encounter and murder, depositing their bodies in a great, deep pit.
It’s everything a cavernous hole should be; primal, all-consuming, an abscess of the earth and always looking out of place in its normal surroundings. The mother’s descent into the pit and talking to the skeletons that reside there is a great example of the delusional power dynamics that layer the film. Onibaba‘s final, frozen moment is a brilliant ambiguous question mark dangling over the entrance to cinema’s greatest pit.
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