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.

Despite the baby being a bit of an annoyance throughout the movie, it's not a bad one.

This is mainly a horror movie, by far, but it has a cool twist to it.

There aren't many actors in The Hallow, but I think they ones in it are pretty good and makes the movie what it is - which is a pretty good one. The actors makes the story of the movie more believable even.

The story is very different, the visual effects are nice, and said actors are good too.

I always comment that non-Hollywood are non-Hollywood. This is one of those, and as always it's refreshing to have some original characters in a setting that isn't a standard.

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

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

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")