The Hollow

Cora (Deborah Kara Unger) barely escapes a mysterious force. Her nieces Sarah (Stephanie Hunt), Marley (Sarah Dugdale), and Emma (Alisha Newton) arrive on Shelter Island to stay with her. The sisters are out of money after the death of their parents and the treatment for the traumatized Emma. Seth (Richard Harmon) follows them. They run out of gas and find a dying Aunt Cora in her crashed car. They rescue a heavily injured woman who tells them that the killings would continue until the end of Halloween.

Deborah Kara Unger is probably the only recognizable name and she gets killed off right away. The production is lower level. Harmon has great creepiness. The girls are functional actors. The cast could work but there isn't much style to the horror directing. The CG is lesser TV level. The creature design is pretty good but it should only come out during the night. It looks cheap in daylight. This is a lesser TV horror.

The concept before anything was actually written into a script may have actually had potential. OK listen there is a long list of b movie horror flicks from the 70s and 80s like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and the Blob. I can't even recall those comedic works. Maybe they were the same quality. I don't remember. All I know is the concept of a creature that comes out during Halloween is not new, but it's not a bad one, the writing however was atrocious, and the main actors were so beyond appalling, I feel embarrassed for them in 20 years from now this will surface and they will feel utterly ashamed for starring in this movie. But most of all the screen writer and producer and director who sat in their chair and actually went ahead with this. Unless the aim was to make the most atrocious film with the most atrocious actors ever on purpose. Then it was a major success. I can't even take this at face value, and I try to do that when I'm watching different genres of movies and not have different expectations. Ugh.

Right off the bat I'll tell you that this movie is also known by the name "The Burning Curse". This will help you try to avoid this movie under any title. The film follows a trio of sisters who are traveling to an island to visit their aunt who is going to help them get better medical treatment for one of the girls, who is traumatized from seeing the death of her parents. For some reason every one-hundred years on Halloween, this island is cursed to have three supposed witches return in the form of a flaming, viney, wooden, scarecrow thingy. It's really not scary, but it manages to look pretty cool on the limited fx. If you see a still photo of the creature one time, this will really be enough to satisfy your curiousity. You really owe it to yourself to keep the ninety minutes of your life that I wasted to warn you of this dud. Watch something else!

And terrible acting my the three who are supposed to be sisters. Side note: I started rooting for the monster after they were told to be quiet and stop screaming 47 times yet refused to.

The cliché "I wish that I could have that time back" really applies to this title. It's formulaic and derivative in the extreme with little to hold your interest, even over the short running time.

You won't care about the characters, any of them. The dynamic of the three sisters is probably the biggest failing in this sorry tale. It just doesn't develop any credible sense that they are actually sisters and have a bond. The tried and trusted "falling out and friends again when the chips are down" story thread just didn't work for me. The story is paper-thin and not executed well in any way. It's in not remotely scary and the attempts at building any sort of tension fail miserably.

Please avoid. Life is too short.