The Hallow
Wood you believe it?
Stuck together with sticky tape and love, this micro-budget horror harks back to the days when Sam Raimi and Tobe Hooper were crafting shoestring classics like Evil Dead and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. While The Hallow doesn’t quite reach those trippy heights, it’s a refreshingly balls-out monster movie from debut director Corin Hardy, whose love for old-school B-horrors is evident in every grisly set-piece and squelchy prosthetic.
While contemporary genre studios like Blumhouse have cornered the market in spook flicks, Hardy has gorier ambitions. Nodding to monster movies like Pumpkinhead and The Fly, his film is pure, joyful creature feature, set in the wilds of Ireland where conservationist Adam ( Joseph Mawle) moves with his wife Clare (Bojana Novakovic) and their newborn baby. They’ve barely unpacked before Adam uncovers strange black goo in the forest, and then the locals turn up demanding they get off their land.
Moving at a storming pace, The Hallow frequently feels like a creaky ’90s gem. Its familiar ingredients (yes, the family have a dog) produce the odd surprise, including some great early scares (one revolving around a car boot) and the leaf-dappled colour palette is gorgeously ominous. You won’t have to wait long for the monsters to turn up, either, and they’re the film’s icky prize, accomplished using a seamless blend of prosthetic and CGI wizardry. In a time when CGI has been left to run wild, The Hallow offers a timely reminder of how it can be used alongside traditional techniques to create something genuinely startling.
Hardy struggles to maintain the furious pace into his film’s third act, but it hardly matters as more monsters emerge from the shadows and, like the best horror films, you’re never sure quite how it’s going to end. Like other low-fi filmmakers before him, Hardy has stitched together a film that monster lovers will adore, and while it’s not perfect, what monster is? Josh Winning THE VERDICT A hair away from being a B-horror classic, The Hallow delivers where it counts: moody, fast-paced and packed with monsters, it contains nostalgic scares aplenty. Oh, and the promise of a sequel. › Certificate 15 Director Corin Hardy Starring Joseph Mawle, Bojana Novakovic, Michael McElhatton, Michael Smiley, Charlotte Williams Screenplay Corin Hardy, Felipe Marino Distributor eOne Running time 97 mins