Hollow

I remember seeing this movie at the Fantasia Festival in Montreal. I am a big fan of those Found Footage movies... really I do love them, but That movie... boring... bland... forgettable at most.

I kinda felt bad in the theater... the producer and director where present and were happy to present us the movie in exclusivity... people seemed happy and all in the room... but by the time the movie ended, it was dead silence... the movie crew were standing in front of the screen, waiting for perhaps some cheering or even question from the viewers... but Nothing... everyone in the theater were bummed and leaving silently. Producers were standing still in an awkward silent room with people trying to flee. Yeah the movie is that bad.

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.

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.

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.

In my ten years of IMDb activity, I have never come across a movie with such laughably fake 'reviews'. I perfectly understand how tastes vary and that one person's hidden gem can be another's stinking turd. But 'Hollow' is, by any objective criteria, pure garbage. The favorable reviews posted here can not possibly be genuine. The movie could have been enjoyably average: a mildly interesting idea squeezed into the found-footage formula of "The Blair Witch Project". It's problem lies squarely with its characters. In real life, panicky people annoy me. You know the type I mean: blubbering and hyperventilating and getting all mindlessly hysterical. I just want to slap them and tell them to grow a spine. My annoyance becomes outright anger when such people are made the protagonists of a movie. And don't tell me it's "realism": millions of people the world over deal with crazy s**t every year without curling up in a ball and begging for death. Every character in "Hollow" runs around screaming and crying, whining and bickering, doing absolutely nothing to help themselves or each other. Every one of them is unbelievably selfish and displays the intelligence of a mildly retarded pre-schooler. They're just so pathetic it's impossible to feel any sympathy, still less empathy. I'm at a loss to understand why movies are made about such people. Why am I supposed to care what happens to them? Why should I bother watching? Complete waste of time: very tough to sit through.