Parents Guide for
Holes (2003) More at IMDbPro »

A comment is made that there are cameras in the showers, prompting one boy to worry about the female warden watching him. Another boy then jokes that they're cameras and microphones, not microscopes.

After seeing the schoolhouse in flames, a desperate Miss Katherine runs to Greenlake's sheriff, seeking his help and protection. Instead, she finds he is drunk. He grabs her and tries to force her to share a kiss with him.

There is a joke about not focusing on the dangers ahead, but to focus on how a girl would look in a bikini.

We see a flashback of a stagecoach turning over and then of three dead men in open coffins (from Kate's actions). We then see some footage of gun shooting, but no impact is seen.

A man is shot in the back.

A young boy cuts his hands on the edge of a shovel (some blood is shown).

Three boys get in a fight and a character is choked but not killed.

A young boy whacks a man with a shovel and the man is knocked out. Some blood is shown.

A man tells a boy not to move and points a gun in his direction. We think he is going to shoot him but it turns out he is trying to save him and kills a lizard.

Kate purposely grabs an extremely poisonous lizard and lets it bite her, causing her to die.

2 damns, 3 hells, 3 craps, 7 uses of "Oh, my God" and 3 of "Oh, God" as exclamations. 1 damn is used sacrilegiously. Jackass is used once.

We hear that Mr. Sir has given up smoking and the Warden later says she liked him better when he smoked. Later, we see him with a cigarette. The scenes of smoking all occur outside, but prominent characters are seen using tobacco around children and teens. Greenlake's sheriff is drunk at the time of Sam's death.

The whole movie is very harsh and mildly bright, since it is set in a camp for young prisoners digging holes.

An early scene useing a cheap and old cinimatic trick to shock your brain is where one of the hole diggers spots a rattlesnake and then slowly approaches it to intentionally get bitten (changing his horrible situation of a childs prison) and other diggers try to coax him out of doing it. We then see the snake strike out (we don't see the impact of the bite, although we hear the digger scream along with the sound track which is sometimes a more powerful shock when your brain imagines the circumstances that lead to the fangs sinking into flesh).

The ghost of a dead character is seen.

The Teacher commits suicide by putting a poisonous lizard to her arm and allowing it to bite her.

There is a lynching of a black man (after the sheriff says that he always enjoys a good lynching) where a school and other buildings are set on fire. The man attempts to escape but is eventually shot in the back.

A young boy, trapped in a hole with poisonous lizards and tries to escape, but cannot, lest one bite will end his life.