The Hollow

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.

I'm pretty sure that a full 2/3 of this script was just the word "Emma".... Is that a spoiler? I don't think that's a spoiler. If anything, it's the only thing this movie has going for it. I want to say it's the acting that's miserable, but it's probably the writing and the directing as well. The monster is uninspired, the pacing is acidic, and.... (is this five lines yet?)

OK, I've already spent more time on this review than the movie deserves. You can do better! Somewhere out there is paint that is drying! Go watch that!

As soon as you're introduced to the protagonists of the film you want to slap them. After another two minutes I wanted to strangle them and we haven't even gotten to the meat of the film yet.

Now typically going into any creature feature you're not expecting much and when it's a cable show produced creature feature you're expecting even less. However it's never a good sign when you don't care at all about the main characters and you're waiting for characters to die.

They are beyond annoying and I didn't care what they went through, I was rooting for the demonic spirit creature to devour them preferably slowly and painfully.

I've seen cable produced creature features that were at least watchable but this was not one of them.

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.

Before I tell you what this movie was let me tell you what it wasn't. It wasn't scary, it wasn't a horror, it wasn't suspenseful, it wasn't thrilling, it wasn't intriguing, and it wasn't good. I didn't know it was possible to feel the complete apathy I felt watching this.

Here's what it was: it was terrible. Mind bogglingly terrible.

I know that movies have their clichés, I get it, but this movie didn't even remain consistent with the rules it established. A poor CGI, fire mouthed, tree limbed beast is killing all the Islanders. Gauging the corpses everywhere it is a pretty efficient killer--well until three clueless sisters come along, then it becomes a stalking, creeping killer. The type of killer that gives its prey plenty of time to run, hide or devise a plan. The type of killer that's easily distracted by other prey simply because it's on the screen.

I was simply amazed at the CGI monster's ability to make this movie last 85 minutes. It truly knew that it was on screen and it milked it for all it was worth. It stopped and posed elaborately. It growled and roared and screamed. It showed a full array of monster emotion thereby giving it credibility. Sadly, I don't think it will get a star on the Monster Walk of Fame. It's still no Blob, Alien, Predator, Pennywise or just about every other film creature. In fact it was just lame.