Hollow

wow---what a ride through some really deep s*&%. I am not surprised that the writer/director came up with such a visually gritty (albeit pleasing)flick. I loved the imagery and the scene painting---very gripping. Lighting was fabulous, too. story was rooted in some great observations of human nature. I can see that the changes from the "good, clean" scenes to the monstrous ones were well thought out and gave the viewer a chance to see through the eyes of the kid, although I don't know that we knew that as we were viewing---just after we pondered it for a bit. I am sure that the father seemed like a monster and that door was a dreaded port for Joshua. I thought the actress was superb in both her delivery of the lines and her emaciated look--very heroin chic. Nice work, lovely painting of a movie. What's next, Paul?

This is a good short-film. It contains the necessary "ingredients" that are required to make a suspense, thriller, or horror movie. I found it in the thriller category at ITunes, but it could go in horror, too. Anyways, whether it's thriller or horror doesn't matter because it's sure enough scary. The main ingredient that makes any movie of any genre a good one is the music, and the music in Hollow is timed perfectly to make anybody jump, and then, other times, it's just right to give you goosebumps and make you wonder what's coming in the next scene. Next, the lighting is done well, although at times I thought it might have been a little dark, but I soon realized the darkness was appropriate for the scene. The actors all do very well. Caulfield won an award for her role, Crawford did well in his supporting role, and Israel did very well in a role that I think challenges for the lead.

One slightly obscure part to the plot is the undeveloped storyline for the red door and for the scene in the dining room. However, the suspense around the door is a major factor in the movie. I'd just like for a good scary storyline to be written and made into a full-length movie. All in all, this is just a plain 'ole good scary film. No CGI, high-action effects or heavy gore. It's just good and scary. Similar in ways to full-length psychological thrillers like "Jacobs Ladder", "The Ring", etc.

I had the very great pleasure of viewing this film on my Comcast and would have to say it was one of the best short thriller films that I have seen, though the only problem was that we never knew what was behind the red door. However, I pretty sure that this film gave a vague idea of what was truly hidden behind it. Whatever it was, it turned the family into horrid dysfunctional and broken family, almost as if the thing that was behind that door was insanity.

What I did enjoy with this film was the style and the way that the entire film was shot and presented. I really enjoyed the clever work with the camera and the establishing shots the accompanied it. When the door opened and the "thing" that was inside of it leaked and the whole film took a swan dive into insanity, I felt really horrified, especially that family dinner scene and the dead baby. I very much enjoyed the lighting in which the thing was shot in and how high contrast the door was.

The ending was not a surprise, but it was almost sad and disturbing of what happened to this family, however, based on the father's actions and just the way his personality worked, it was easy to see what could have happened. The acting was okay, it wasn't the best but it certainly wasn't the worse. Overall, I believe this story had a strong storyline with many hidden subtexts the worked very well. Accompanied with the story, the technical aspects of this film were outstanding and really well done. It seems like a student film but I would strongly recommend this movie to anybody who loves shorts as well as horror.