Twisty mystery
Murder story has more turns than a mountain road
There are twists in this murder mystery that I guarantee you won’t see coming. But that’s not because the screenplay, by gaffer-turned-first-time director Scooter Corkle, is especially clever. It’s just outlandishly twisty.
The action takes place in Castlegar, a picturesque town in southeastern B.C. It’s been a year since a drunk driver killed a 15-yearold boy. Now the driver is in jail, his wife has left him and his two children are trying to hold things together on their own.
The younger, Brandon (Jared Abrahamson), is 17 and getting into trouble almost daily. His sister, Alison (Dianna Agron), has a job and legal custody of Brandon. She’s also a lesbian. That, combined with her deadbeat dad, is enough to erase any goodwill the neighbours might have for her.
Things get moving when Brandon’s girlfriend’s father is murdered and Brandon, chief suspect for any number of reasons, up and vanishes. The cops assume guilt, but Alison is determined to Scooby-Doo her bro out of trouble, and starts sleuthing around town, picking up clues and stumbling over dead bodies. Given the modern-day setting and youthful protagonists, call it Murder, She Texted.
Alas, 92 minutes isn’t enough time to really develop Alison’s detecting bona fides. Mostly she relies on assistance from officer Darryl (Shawn Ashmore), who seems more than a little smitten, and on hackneyed clues like a particular brand of cigarettes left behind at crime scenes, and strangers who tell her “You didn’t hear this from me ...” before opening up with deep secrets. This being British Columbia, off-grid pot growers also make an appearance.
Agron, part of the sprawling cast of TV’s Glee, is probably the best thing about Hollow in the Land. She manages an admirable mix of seriousness, exasperation and terror at the nefarious goings-on, and the scene where she just ... can’t ... bring herself to look at a fresh corpse feels refreshingly realistic.
Even better, she manages not to roll her eyes at some of the loopy plot developments. Staring down the very movie you’re in deserves its own kind of acting award.