Los hijos del diablo

The sad but honest truth is that I already have trouble remembering what exactly happened in "The Hallow", and yet it's only been 2 or 3 days since I watched it. I certainly don't want to sound too harsh because this little Irish horror tale benefices from an admirably dark & sinister atmosphere, fantastically horrific filming locations, and strong performances by unknown but devoted cast members. I guess the familiar plot outline and the almost complete lack of shocking highlights causes for "The Hallow" to remain unmemorable, but it's nevertheless worth checking out for fans of obscure indie-horror.

The description of the plot probably won't persuade anyone to immediately put "The Hallow" on top of his/her must-see list. A young couple and their newborn baby move from Belfast to a ramshackle old cabin at the edge of a remote forest, where the husband is assigned to mark trees for logging. Of course, they aren't heartly welcomed by the conservative locals. Of course, rocks are flying through the windows as a warning shortly after their arrival. Of course, the family dog quickly starts barking at "something" sinisterly moving between the trees in the backyard. I can list another handful of similar clichés if you want. What writer/director Corin Hardy admirably accomplishes, however, is that he remains fixated on bringing the Irish folklore legend accurately rather than reverting to a gory horror flick with hideous woods-demons and a high body-count. Throughout the entire running time, "The Hallow" remains a sober and atmosphere-driven fright tale with a few unusual and courageous plot twists. You have to at least respect that.

One thing is for certain after watching The Hallow, Corin Hardy is a great new director. He achieves a dark, creepy and supernatural tone effortlessly. He avoids the mistake horrors commit far to often in modern times, and that is trying to achieve a general mood far to hard, to many films nowadays, especially in the horror genre, try and be something they're not by forcing tones and characters that just seem all to out of place. The Hallow doesn't do this, it doesn't forcefully shove dark tones down your throat, it simply sticks to the story and in due to course you are made fully aware of its existence.

The film itself is enjoyable, starts off slow and gradually builds speed like every other horror movie there ever has been. I tend to avoid the topic of predictability in my reviews, for many horrors it's hard not to avoid it. The Hallow however can't have any excuses, it's a completely unique concept which shouldn't succumb to being predictable, but oh how it does. It's unfortunate, it's one of a few flaws in a far from flawless movie.

The movie does however achieve a great deal of success in a number of areas, it's practical effects are incredible, even though it's CGI is...forgettable, the film overall stills looks tremendous, the cinematography in this film is honestly next to flawless, in fact it reminds me a great deal of the cinematography in 'The Grey' 2011.

The underlying message in The Hallow, I'm led to believe, is that deforestation will only lead to consequences on our selves as humanity. I'd like to think this film is smart enough to portray a metaphor amongst it's story. What I take from its message is that we are unable to control nature, and no matter how hard we try to avoid this fact, one day we will have to come to this realization.

The Hallow is a solid movie, the acting performances are solid, the direction is outstanding and the cinematography is beautiful, this movie is a lot smarter than most of the generic horrors that are forced upon us nowadays, it deserves recognition for this.

7.4/10

Good horror films like Hereditary and Midsommar maintain a constant sense of dread until the climax this didn't spend enough time building a sense of calm or backstory for the crescendo to land. A shame as the performances were completely believable.

Also whilst always preferable to CGI, the monsters weren't scary.

On the surface, The Hallow seemed like it would offer me something I always look for in horror - a unique experience. It has made a villain out of Irish folklore creatures, like Fairies and Banshees, which is not exactly a common subgenre. The film follows a man who looks for diseases on trees. He relocates to a small Irish village with his wife and baby in order to track a fungus growing in the surrounding forest. As soon as he does, his neighbor starts pestering him about staying out of the forest, because if you trespass on Fairy territory, they will come inside your house and steal your baby.

This movie attempts to give us a spin on monster movies by trying to weave science and fairytale together. Unfortunately, not enough attention was paid to how these two things are supposed to intertwine, and the result simply does not work - the science aspect of the film makes zero sense in the context of the fairytale one, and vice versa. So, instead of sticking to one of these two approaches, and developing it to a point where it works well, they half-assed both and we get nonsense that simply does not fit together into one whole. Not to mention that one of these two conflicting sides was lifted straight out of another UK horror film which is less than 10 years old, which executed it a million times better to boot.

I could have forgiven the ill-fitting (and, to be honest, way too basic) plot if the individual scenes took good advantage of the world the movie was trying to create. This leads me to the "mortal wound" of the film, the one that renders it creatively mute - its individual scenes. While the movie is not about a haunting, it follows every single "family moves into isolated haunted house" trope and then some. It was almost overwhelming. Seemingly crazy neighbor trying to warn family? Check. Exploring damp and dirty attic? Check. Baby monitor making weird noises? Check. Dog whimpering while chained outside? Check. Item dropped in the car by a driver who then crashes while looking for it on the floor instead of stopping the car or just waiting til they get home? Check. Creatures afraid of light, so you have to go outside and restart the generator cause there's no electricity? Check. Little blonde girl who looks like a zombie? Check. Every ounce of the movie was "horror 101", think Haunting in Connecticut or Amityville Remake or any other generic horror.

Even minor details which could have coloured an otherwise gray outing were foregone. The movie sets up fun "lore" as to what hurts the forest creatures and then just abandons it completely. So their skin burn if they touch iron metal? Well then this renders the ENTIRE last act of the film pointless, as the "conundrum" that the characters find themselves in would have been instantly solvable. But for the sake of having a third act at all, they just pretend that the characters forget what they learn instantly and never utilize the knowledge. Not a smart script here. The beginning also made me hopeful for the approach to the villainous creatures - they were never shown, with only shadows and silhouettes and body parts popping up here and there. This was successful in keeping them mysterious and should have been propagated to the second half. Instead, like some other recent horrors (Mama for example), the secretive tension is fully abandoned and by the end we get low- budget cartoonish CGI creatures in full glorious view every few seconds. Tension is simply incompatible with poorly animated fairies. The human characters were empty shells as well. The father shows personality exactly once in the very beginning and then abandons it. The mother displays none, and just does what the husband asks of her subserviently most of the time.

Overall, The Hallow is hollow of entertainment and creativity. I appreciate the initial idea of what the writer and director were trying to do, but the final product is a regression for the horror genre and is near the bottom as far as 2015 horror.

4/10

Regardless of how overused the basic plot, executed with very hit and miss success on film, is, 'The Hallow' did have a good deal of potential. The idea was actually a good one, the title was to the point and attention grabbing and Joseph Mawle is always worth watching. So expectations were hardly low for 'The Hallow', and actually did think this could be a decent film. Of course too there was apprehension, considering the standard of a lot of horror films seen recently not highly rated or divisively to negatively reviewed that turned out to be that bad.

A decent film 'The Hallow' turned out to be, and it is something of a relief to be saying this. Not a great film, with it running out of steam too soon and the quality set up so well before being lost. 'The Hallow' was quite good though for two thirds of the duration and while it didn't quite meet its potential it hardly wastes it either. Which pleased me having grown tired of the many potential wastes cropping up in my recent viewings and fearing somewhat that 'The Hallow' would fare the same.

Will start with the good things. 'The Hallow' doesn't look too bad visually, it's stylishly and atmospherically shot, has scenery that is pretty and atmospheric, has suitably eerie lighting, has editing that is cohesive and the effects at least didn't look shoe-string budget (certainly when compared to those from other films seen recently). It is hauntingly and not too intrusively scored and the direction has focus and momentum.

There is tension and suspense and a lot of genuine creepiness in particularly the middle act. That it is so in more than one way makes the execution fairly clever and fresh which is remarkable considering that the idea is hardly new. 'The Hallow' starts well but it's the middle act where it shines most where there are scenes that do unnerve. The creatures looked good and they did pose a formidable threat, would have liked to see them more though. The characters didn't bore or annoy me, while not exactly rich in character development there have been films that have done far worse regarding motivations and behaviours. Joseph Mawle commands the film well, standing out of an above average cast.

So it is unfortunate that the final act was such a significant step down in quality, to the extent that it was hard to believe it was the same film. The suspense and creepiness dissipates and confusion and silliness replaces them, both to an excessive degree. It becomes muddled, from too much being left vague or unexplained, and ridiculous.

Momentum sags badly particularly at this point, actually think that the pace was imperfect throughout but it was really only in some very uneventful stretches and some choppy storytelling that it did become bothersome. The dialogue is pretty weak, while the ending completely fails to make sense. Not many film endings recently have had me scratching my head, 'The Hallow' did that with me.

In conclusion, decent but let down by the inferior final third. 6/10 Bethany Cox