Charlie Shotwell in John and the Hole
Charlie Shotwell plays an intense teen who traps his family in a forest bunker in Pascual Sisto s disturbing first feature, also starring Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Ehle and Taissa Farmiga.
The minefield of early adolescence is a treacherous phase in Spanish visual artist Pascual Sisto s
John and the Hole, in which Charlie Shotwell gives a rivetingly affectless performance as an apathetic 13-year-old who holds his parents and sister captive in an underground bunker. The director has jokingly referred to his psychological coming-of-age thriller as a Michael Haneke version of
Home Alone, which isn t far from the truth. But it more specifically recalls the 2014 nail-biter by the Austrian auteur s compatriots Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala,