Hollow

I love found footage movies. I adored Paranormal Activity, and I'm a huge apologist for The Blair Witch Project as well as, recently, V/H/S. This gimmick, and it is definitely a gimmick, has potential to make for classic horror when put in the right hands.

That didn't happened here. Michael Axelgaard is the definition of the wrong hands.

Hollow is the worst found footage movie I've seen so far. It represents perfectly everything that's wrong with this gimmick, and how easily it can be abused.

Ideally, the first person format should be used to assist in the storytelling. With Paranormal Activity, the movie is all about creating a realistic setting, and much of the plot revolves around observing your room as you sleep. I can't imagine that as a traditionally shot film. It taking place on the protagonist's camera is important.

Movies like Hollow don't use this filmmaking style as a tool; they use it as an excuse.

It's an excuse to make your low budget, equivalent to that of a student film, seem less obvious; an excuse to never actually show anything substantial; an excuse to never fully develop your characters; an excuse to point the camera at someone's feet for minutes at a time and get away with it.

On top of that, nearly every single scare in Hollow is a fake out. The character will point the camera at something, or start to walk somewhere, and things will get quiet. Suddenly, the camera SUDDENLY CUTS to something else, or a bird will fly out.

These can be fun sometimes, but when the ratio of fake out scares to real scares is roughly 9 to 1, there's a serious issue. That number is probably too generous.

Now let's talk about the actual scares. What I mean by this is times we or the characters are frightened by something that turns out to be a real threat - the difference between a cat jumping out at you, and a monster jumping out at you.

I can recall maybe three in the entire film.

And who is the villain, exactly? The closest we get is a tree, which never actually does anything sinister (that skull on the poster is a complete lie), and a jacket. A character's coat becomes one of the major threats of the final act.

The rest of the film is a combination of useless filler scenes, mostly revolving around relationship drama that not even these actors seem to care about, and scenes of characters running around screaming as the camera points at the ground, with the viewer not being able to see anything.

The ending is puzzling. Not because it's surprising, but because it's so spectacularly unsurprising that you can't help but scratch your head. The movie forecasts exactly what will happen from the opening scene, and then by the end, it happens. And that's it. It never even attempts to offer anything else.

Hollow is essentially 90 minutes of watching vacation footage your douche bag kind-of-but-not-really friends shot while snorting cocaine and screaming about haunted trees.

But other than that, it was pretty good.

Four twenty-somethings—Emma (Emily Plumtree), her fiancé Scott (Matt Stokoe), her best friend James (Sam Stockman), and his girlfriend Lynne (Jessica Ellerby)—take a holiday in the countryside where an evil presence lurks inside an ancient, hollow oak tree, preying on negative thoughts, causing relationships to crumble and ultimately driving victims to a terrible fate.

Hollow has been described as the British Blair Witch Project, which is another way of saying that it is a complete and utter rip-off of the 1999 found footage 'classic', only set in rural Suffolk, England. And if, like me, you weren't all that impressed by Blair Witch, then I think it's highly unlikely that you'll enjoy this one either.

With four characters experiencing relationships issues, it proves extremely tedious. What's more boring than watching people wander aimlessly round the countryside in the dark? Watching them doing it while bickering, that's what! After an hour-and-a-half of following the unlikeable quartet as they investigate the local legend of Greyfriar's Hollow (as the tree is known), snort coke, argue, get lost, and become scared of their own shadows, you'll be longing for them all to die. Which they do, of course.*

2/10, plus one point for the gratuitous nudity from blonde hottie Ellerby (whose character is so dumb she doesn't think to wipe the tape when filmed in the bathroom), but minus one for for the contrived manner in which a good length of stout rope, so vital to the film's final scene, is shoe-horned into the script (really, who the hell uses rope for securing luggage to a roof-rack when bungee cords and tie down straps work so much better?).

*NOT a spoiler, since we are told that they all die in the very first scene.

HOLLOW is the British version of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, or should I say the British rip-off because this is a complete riff on that classic film. Of course, it's nowhere near as good, but fans of the found footage genre might enjoy a few spooky moments here and there.

For the most part, though, this is a missed opportunity. This film was especially interesting to me given that I was involved in my own BLAIR WITCH-style spoof back in the day and I had a lot of fun making it. Plus the locations are dear to my heart, and this was filmed just up the road from me. What a shame that for 90% of the running time the viewer is stuck with a quartet of detestable characters who alternate between boring and stupid. We're stuck with them as they argue, snort coke, and generally waste time until the next scare scene.

There is good stuff here, involving creepy foxes and some wonderfully evoked rural locations - that tree and the ruins are atmospheric without the film-makers even trying - but it's lost in a welter of average acting and sheer mediocrity. When the horror hits, there's way too much deafening screaming and the scares feel oddly diluted. In retrospect, I'd stick with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.

I've watched most if not all found footage movies I can get my hands on. Why? Because I am seeking to find a found footage movie that does not disappoint. Some examples that I find to be good FF movies would include the original "Blair Witch Project", Korea's "Haunted Changhi", Australia's "The Tunnel", just to name a few. The Paranormal Activity movies do NOTHING for me and that franchise is the biggest scam since the Star Wars franchise. So if you agree with me here, you will take my review to heart. You can watch this terrible movie "Hollow" for yourself, just know, you've been warned.

The movie is 70% bickering couples/friends, 20% black screen and 9% running, interior car shots and 1% horror- and I'm being generous with that 1%.

The movie is predictable, boring and not scary. You've seen this movie before, it's every other found footage film set in the wilderness. There's nothing new in this film to bend the genre or add to it. Absolutely nothing happening in this movie. It's the most boring movie I've ever seen.

You'd think someone would get a clue as to what to do with these movies to make them more interesting. Put a creepy face in the background once in a while, something, make me WANT to keep watching.

I found myself looking past the television screen, spacing out and not missing a beat in this one.

This is bad. RIP creative and original movies. Your boring self destructive red headed cousin has taken over and did a crap on everything.

Resembles Blair Witch Project which I've never seen. All the hand held camera shots do not work. There is a reason professional actors are paid so much. They are good. These amateur actors, if you can call them that, are awful. I watched first 1/2 hour and bailed. This is a complete waste of time.