The Hallow

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.

In Ireland, the botanist Adam (Joseph Mawle) moves with his wife Clare (Bojana Novakovic) and their baby son Finn to a remote house in the backwoods to study the local forest. He is warned to leave the place by his neighbor Colm Donnelly (Michael McElhatton), but Adam does not give attention to the man´s words. But soon he learns that there is something evil in the forest that wants Finn.

"The Hallow" is a horror film with great potential and promising story wasted by the terrible conclusion. The screenplay builds the tension perfectly, using few special effects. The climax is when Adam´s house is attacked by the evil creatures from the forest. But the writer did not know how to give explanations and conclude the film that becomes a lame mess. Somehow the conclusion gives the idea of being ecological but indeed it is terrible. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "A Maldição da Floresta" ("The Curse of the Forest")

Pulling from ancient Irish fables and mythology, The Hallow, also known as The Woods, takes the fairy tale atmosphere and destroys it with malevolence and foreboding darkness.

Tasked with unfortunate responsibility of going into rural Ireland's natural landscape, British conservationist Adam Hitchens must venture into the woods and choose which trees are right for milling. The townspeople warn him that he doesn't belong, that in those woods are land belonging to the Hallow, tiny little ancient tree fairies who were driven from their sacred lands. Ignoring their warnings, Adam and his family quickly find out there's truth in mythology, and fight to survive the night against these demonic creatures.

The Hallow is an effective horror because it does not rely on one type of horror, imperative of those select creature genre flicks which always end up disappointing. The horror is multi-layered, initially relying on the foreboding sense of unrest from the superstitious townspeople. Then it morphs into a creature horror, but just when you think its simplicity has reached a peak, it turns again, this time the utter terror and cringe inducing body horror of a dark essence invading your skin. But it's not over yet, then it adds the complete panic of a mother protecting her child at the risk of losing him forever. With all these ingredients, there is a type of horror for everyone to get you squirming.

It's rather amazing that The Hallow is Corin Hardy's first legitimate feature film. His grasp upon mood and ability to integrate story with scares while having the eye to make a visually stunning film that is overcast and dark is beyond impressive, with similar praise going to the cinematographer Martijn van Broekhuizen. His use of natural scenery, muted tones, and shadows to hide and highlight the ominous creatures of the woods is that of someone far beyond his experience. It is no wonder that, though a relative unknown, he is slated to direct the remake of The Crow.

It is clear that no aspect of The Hallow was beyond Hardy's creative reach. Everything is subtle, muted even. The music is practically subliminal, building tension naturally rather than forcing an emotion that is not organically present in the subject matter. And yet, Hardy's film has clear vision and makes a strong statement by veering past the standard three Act format and skipping from the first to the third with no middle act to be found.

Based on the execution of The Hallow, I think Corin Hardy is going to be one of the up and coming directors to watch the way James Wan took over the horror scene. The Hallow may not be as a resounding scream of an announcement of talent as Saw was for Wan, but is surely the whisper to get Hardy started.

7.5/10

Please check out our website for full reviews of ALL the recent horror releases.

I felt as if this film needs to be praised as it carried out a very well execution for such an overused plot. You have your typical "family stuck in the middle of nowhere, creature activity" gimmick, fortunately played out smoothly in "The Hallow" I felt as if the characters were well acted, and had a nice potential going for them. We, audience actually cared for our characters, we cared for whether they died, or lived, something many horror movies with similar plot fail to do. As said before, the film has a clichéd plot, but this film manages to lift the cliché, turning it into a unique, new, refreshing event of execution. I felt as if, with the plot, the story, and events the characters were faced with was quite well, ans once again well played out. Finally, I was personally pleased with the creature appearances, I felt as if they did great for what they stood for, and I also enjoyed, along the lines, the depth of which the film created for them. They came out creepy, and succeeded in giving the audience tension.

This film succeeds in many good horror movie elements, and it also succeeds in giving some nice charm, as well. The film, also, explains itself, and turns a horror cliché into something more. Highly recommended.

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