Survive the Hollow Shoals

Never heard of this film before but watched it last night on prime. What a shock, it was well worth a watch. A note to up and coming cheap film makers, this is how you make a cheap film. The only problem I had with this film is that it ended way to abruptly. This film could have easily gone on for another fifteen minutes. Some good scares but need to abruptly for me. Well worth a watch. A solid 5.

A reviewer said apparently as a negative " it's designed to do one thing.... scare." As far as I know that is the intent of every horror movie since the first one and, if it does that... that's why you watched it. Is it the greatest or is it groundbreaking is the concept new that answer would for all three would be no. Is it scary yeah, is it entertaining yeah. The story if you want to can be torn apart pretty easy and if you want to go ahead. But why not sit back turn your critical eye off and be scared.

Ghosts in the woods much like Blair Witch. Actually it's more like a movie set in the Blair Witch-iverse. The difference is that in this flick we actually see our ghost. At first it is done so well that I got gasping scared. Unfortunately the more we see of her the less ominous she becomes. Luckily the sounds and unseen version of her are good n scary. Our hero goes into the woods as a survivalist-type feat. Once he is finally frightened enough to leave for home he can't. He can't find his way out of the shoals. True to horror-movie form he disregarded the stories about the Hollow Shoals being haunted, mores the pity. This is yet another movie with a rushed ending that seems tacked on.

3 stars lust for a likable actor...Love found footage films, but this one is a bit of a disaster...Like others, main complaint is not very well thought through soundtrack...Found footage should be as close to reality as possible, not with studio created sound effects...Overall ,just a very lazy try to imitate the classic Blair witch ,very unsuccessfully. Avoid.

I consider myself a found footage aficionado, as much as I'm a huge fan of the genre I can judge each film on it's own merit.

This film is promising to begin with, character development is good and I'm interested in the survivalist documentary that is the motivation of the footage. Spooky things begin to occur, screams and noises from afar but nothing that couldn't be explained away, at this point the film is holding together.

Then it falls apart!

It's a massive no no to have any kind of musical score in a found footage film, and even worse to add schlock BANGS! every time you catch a glimpse of something eerie. It's as subtle as a brick. It continues to get worse throughout, all suspense and creepiness is completely lost. You no longer jump at anything visual, just huge explosions of electronic bombs rattling your speakers.

To the uninitiated or casual fans of horror I'm sure that the jumps that dished out from the orchestral bangs will be enough to fool them into thinking that they've seen a scary movie but that's not the case. This film should have been creepy and mind bending, the main protagonist is trapped and can't work out what to do next. Aside from the ridiculous soundtrack there is also no ending or intrigue provided by an open ending and it's all a bit of a let down.

It's a shame that this film goes so awry because it has the makings of something much better, it would have hovered around a 3 rating but it loses another star for it's soundtrack!!