The Hollow Child

The haters will hate. As a film lover and director myself, the script was good, directing was good, story was executed well. It was suspenseful and the editor gets props from me.

In a way .. this movie reminded me on "Changeling" .. which had a similar premise .. as in .. an imposter child (but without any demonic or supernatural context)

Now .. about the movie, why would i say it is "bad"?

The story itself is quite traditional, and a classic tale of replacing a loved one with a malicious imposter .. kind of a tale to explain changes in character, estranged friends or family members etc. ... but the movie falls into so many tropes and pitfalls.

The main one is .. as in sooo many suspense and horror movies .. the bad communication between the characters. We are to believe that the only exchange of information is the one we see .. when the story jumps over several days, if not weeks. So either the family really doesn t talk much at all, or they manage to avoid any deeper topics completely.

The time we do see them communicate, they do their very best to NOT tell each other anything informative about something very important that had just happened in their life. I find such behaviour too much to believe in most horror movies, hence ... lazy; - because it makes the story avoid more complex and intelligent ways to still put the protagonists in danger.

Instead we get a very stereotypical .. very 101 story without surprises.

Its a shame .. all in all, i found the "Changeling" more disturbing and in a way .. suspenseful than "The hollow child" .. considering that Changeling is a crime/drama .. and Hollow Child is suspense/horror .. this is not a very good thing.

The acting was OK, but the characters were way too one dimensional and stereotypical.

I am afraid to say that i would rate this movie below average for utmost laziness. It is one among thousands .. without any outstanding quality.

This film is based on very common folk tale. I saw many demon child movies. Children of the Corn, Pet Cemetery etc. It means many movie genre fan are still love this kind movie. I expect baby face killer. And there is but this is not that much brutal and doesn't have much gore scenes. So, I think The Hollow Child is fully enjoyable for fun and mid horror.

Sam the main character is very misunderstood by some dumb parents. Olivia the little demon child gets away with everything. I enjoyed it. But kinda slow.

Pros: Cinematography is well done Acting is exceptional at moments Practical effects were decent

Cons: The soundtrack of the film is a bit overbearing and often leads to more of a sensation of melodrama rather than suspense The feeling of dread and suspense doesn't really kick in until the later half of the film The film relies on multiple occurrences of look in direction, nothing there, look away, look back, somethings there. This happens to end up flawed since suspense is not built up enough for these moments to pay off

Overall, a good watch but I wouldn't suggest paying a full price of admission to a theater. The film feels more at home on a movie streaming service.