Panic Fest 2025 Coverage
Head Like a Hole review
Work sucks.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
Head Like a Hole
Directed by Stefan MacDonald-Labelle
Written by Mitchell Brhelle and Stefan MacDonald-Labelle
Starring Steve Kasan and Jeff McDonald
Head Like a Hole Review
Head Like a Hole starts off hot. A man bludgeons himself to death with a hammer hot. As one generally doesn’t have a lot of information heading into screening a festival movie…the beginning of Head Like a Hole presented an exciting prospect. What immediately follows is anything but. The slow paced black and white film often feels pointless. At least…until it gets to the point. There is a method to Head Like a Hole’s madness. Whether the juice is worth the squeeze is going to lie in the eye of the beholder. If your enjoyment requires a lot of hammers to the head…the bulk of Head Like a Hole is going to be a bit rough for you. If you don’t mind a patient mystery with a worthwhile reveal…you’re going to want to give this one a shot.
Asher (Steve Kasan) takes a job with some odd requirements. The pay and the benefits seem too good to be true. Surely, they’re worth putting up with a dress code or the rigid demands of his boss Emerson (Jeff McDonald). The job? Measure a hole in a basement wall to see if it has grown. What could be easier?
Head Like a Hole gets Asher’s situation across very quickly. He is in dire need of money…as the man on the other side of the phone that is about to be turned off makes clear. His car even dies as he makes his way to a job interview. That interview will change the course of his life forever. It’s a well-paying gig that he even manages to negotiate a higher wage for. No experience is necessary…which is the exact amount Asher seems to have. He’s even allowed to stay in the house where this unique business is conducted from. The business…of measuring a hole.
That hammer bashing opening scene plays an important role in Head Like a Hole. Nothing else like it is going to happen for a long time. The unknown man who did the hammering…did so in front of the hole in the wall that Asher is tasked to measure. The assignment is easy…but the job comes with conditions. Getting a radio into the basement to help him pass the time takes far more effort than it should. Emerson is an intensely strange man. There’s a strict dress code for some reason. To sit in the basement and measure a hole. It’s enough to make you want to take a hammer to your own noggin.
That’s when Head Like a Hole’s purpose became clear. It’s supposed to feel like work. A seemingly meaningless and repetitive task conducted under needlessly strict conditions overseen by a guy whose sole purpose seems to be making you miserable. That’s every job everyone has ever had. It doesn’t take long into Asher’s employment to understand why his predecessor picked up that hammer.
It takes 99 days for Asher to snap. Not in a “pick up a blunt object and end it all” kind of way. In a paranoid, mentally exhausting kind of way. The hole has done nothing. It’s just a hole in the wall, after all. Or is it? Conversations with Emerson become stranger as time goes on. Asher is tasked with naming the hole…another seemingly random and worthless assignment. It also proves to be incredibly difficult for Asher to accomplish. And surprisingly meaningful when Head Like a Hole reveals its endgame.
The finale of Head Like a Hole makes the opening head bashing look like child’s play. An hour and 24 minutes into the movie…Asher’s work finally pays off. It’s an unexpected climax to a story that genuinely could have just been about a job that drives people crazy simply by being a job. Head Like a Hole has something a bit more…cosmic in mind. It’s a fun ending that makes the days toiling away in a basement staring at a hole almost worth it. If you can get on board with the story’s commitment to feeling like monotonous busy work…well worth it.
Scare Value
Nothing happens for a long time in Head Like a Hole. Normally, this would be a negative statement…and it will, at times, try your patience. There’s a purpose to it, however. It clicks in the moment that you realize this thankless, seemingly worthless, task is meant to feel like work. That might not sound fun…but where Head Like a Hole is going is. Even if it takes so long to get there.
