Hollow (2011)

Sometimes you just stumble upon a great film, one of those cheap horror films that you spot at about number 30 on a DVD chart at the supermarket, 99% of the time they are just awful, but once every so often you find something that you love. Hollow is a found footage British horror, following two couples that have travelled to the cottage that Emma (Plumtree) inherited after the death of her grandfather, situated in rural Suffolk, the four combine sorting through the former vicar’s belongings and sightseeing, whilst looking through some old files, they discover that there is an alarming amount of double suicides associated with the local monastery and the ominous tree that overlooks it.

The four attempt to find out more about the monastery, but even the local vicar is evasive when talking about the local area and the suicides, this means that when they stumble upon the monastery when making their way to the beach, they know not to avoid the area.

The film doesn’t delve too deep into the reasons why there is such a high number of suicidal couples, or who/what is driving them to death, but the tree is a major part of it, holding a strange presence over the four holidaymakers subtly changing their personalities, driving couples apart and fraying friendships, but no matter how hard they try, they keep getting drawn back to there, unable to break free from the hold it has on them, bringing out their innermost desires.

The film uses the camera to great effect, which is somewhere a lot of found footage horror movies fall down, it makes it something that they need, as one of the few pieces of equipment that is still working and their last remaining light source, though living in rural England, the lack of signal and vandalised phone boxes are commonplace, so I wouldn’t suggest demonic intervention every time, though it does a good job of highlighting just how isolated they are, especially when you still don’t know who/what is hunting them.

To the film’s credit, keeping the identity of what it is that they are running from a secret, helps keep the suspense going, from the moment they first come across the monastery right up until the final shot, with the feeling of dread and fear growing as one by one the group start going missing, caused by culprits unknown and as it is a found footage film, the skills of the actors was paramount to making this believable afterall, these aren’t models, they are regular people, going for a normal holiday that goes wrong and when things do start to happen, they don’t jump straight to the conclusion that its something supernatural, instead they try to be logical, right up until they are too scared to think straight.

This film is far from a classic, with other reviews being less nice about it, And I can see where they are coming from. The lack of any delving into why things are happening will frustrate many, especially when found footage horror has developed into its own sub-genre, I believe Hollow is still worth a watch as a perfectly serviceable popcorn horror, you’ll just have to come up with the answers yourself, which from experience can be scarier…