''The Hallow'' (originally titled ''The Woods'') is a 2015
horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
directed by
Corin Hardy
Corin Hardy (born 6 January 1975) is an English film director. He made his directorial debut with the 2015 horror film '' The Hallow'', which he also co-wrote.
He directed the 2018 horror film '' The Nun'', a spin-off of ''The Conjuring 2'' (2 ...
, written by Hardy and Felipe Marino, and starring
Joseph Mawle
Joseph Daniel Turner Mawle (born 21 March 1974) is an English actor. Mawle is best known for his roles as Benjen Stark in ''Game of Thrones'', Detective Inspector Jedediah Shine in '' Ripper Street'', Firebrace in '' Birdsong'', Jesus Christ in ...
,
Bojana Novakovic
Bojana Novakovic (, sr-Latn, Bojana Novaković) is a Serbian-Australian actress. She is best known for her role as Det. Lizzie Needham on the drama television series '' Instinct'' (2017–2018).
Novakovic's film roles include '' Drag Me to He ...
,
Michael McElhatton
Michael McElhatton (born 12 September 1963) is an Irish actor and writer. He is best known for playing the role of Roose Bolton in the HBO series ''Game of Thrones''. He joined the series as a guest star in the Game of Thrones (season 2), sec ...
, and
Michael Smiley
Michael Smiley (born 1963) is a Northern Irish comedian and actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the films ''Kill List'' (2011) and ''The Lobster'' (2015).
Early life
Smiley was born in 1963 in Belfast and grew up in Holywood with a ...
. It is a British-Irish co-production filmed in Ireland. It premiered at the
2015 Sundance Film Festival on 25 January 2015.
Plot
Adam Hitchens, a British
conservationist specializing in plant and fungal life, his wife Claire, and baby son Finn travel to a remote Irish village surrounded by a large forest. While exploring the forest with Finn, Adam stumbles upon an animal carcass with a strange fungal substance that has burst open the body. Adam takes a sample and returns home with Finn while Claire has an encounter with a local called Colm Donnelly who seems unhappy that the family has moved in.
That night, the window in Finn's room is broken while he is sleeping. While the couple suspects the culprit is Colm in an attempt to scare them away, the police arrive and suggest that a bird flew in. The officers inform them of the legend about the surrounding forest—that is inhabited by "The Hallow", a breed of "
fairies
A fairy (also fay, fae, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, English, and French folklore), a form of spirit, o ...
,
banshee
A banshee ( ; Modern Irish , from sga, ben síde , "woman of the fairy mound" or "fairy woman") is a female spirit in Irish folklore who heralds the death of a family member, usually by screaming, wailing, shrieking, or keening. Her name is c ...
s and baby stealers". Later, Adam spots strange movement in the woods and Claire is puzzled by the fact that the windows of the house are all covered in iron bars. The next day Adam and Finn arrive in town to replace the broken window, when they are treated coldly by the villagers who repeat the legend of The Hallow. Colm arrives at the house again, frightening Claire, and warns her to leave before giving her an old book.
On the drive back, Adam's car breaks down, and he discovers the fungus substance has entered the engine of his car. As he investigates the rest of the car, something pushes him into the boot and locks him in. Adam hears Finn crying as the car starts to shake, and he manages to break out through the backseats. He finds Finn unharmed but the car covered in scratch marks. Unnerved, Adam and Finn return home on foot as night falls, and Claire tells them about Colm. Adam tells Claire to call the police and arms himself with a shotgun. The power goes out, and they find the house has been ransacked. They decide to flee to the car, whereupon they are attacked by the creatures the villagers have warned them about. Adam, Claire, and Finn drive away, but the creatures cause them to crash into a ravine, and they retreat back to the house.
While looking out of a keyhole, Adam is stabbed in the eye by a stinger from one of the creatures and realizes that light repels them. Claire and Finn flee into the attic while Adam goes to start the backup generator. The creatures attack Claire and Finn and nearly stab Claire in the eye too, but Adam is able to start the generator and ward the attackers off. The couple barricades the house and locks Finn in a cupboard. They discover the book that Colm gave Claire is filled with information about The Hallow, including their use of
changeling
A changeling, also historically referred to as an auf or oaf, is a human-like creature found in folklore throughout Europe. A changeling was believed to be a fairy that had been left in place of a human (typically a child) stolen by other fairi ...
s. One of The Hallow manages to abduct Finn before his parents can stop it, and Adam breaks his leg, knocking himself unconscious. Claire pursues the creature and Finn into the forest and retrieves him safely from a pond.
Adam sets his broken leg and, upon Claire and Finn's return to the house, begins to suspect that the Finn that Claire rescued is actually a changeling. Claire refuses to believe this, and the couple fight as Claire notices Adam starting to mutate via the fungus injected into him through the stinger. Claire stabs Adam and panics, fleeing into the forest with Finn. Adam soon follows them as his symptoms worsen, and he grows weak around lights. Claire escapes the forest, running to a nearby house for help. Colm is revealed to be the owner, and he sends Claire and Finn away at gunpoint, claiming that The Hallow took his daughter Cora as well. Adam enters The Hallow's nest and retrieves the real Finn from a fully transformed Cora. Claire fends off a group of The Hallow with a camera flash and reunites with Adam, who convinces her that he has the real Finn. They swap babies before Adam is fatally wounded by one of the creatures. The sun rises, forcing the creatures to retreat and destroying the changeling, proving that Adam was right.
Adam dies from his wounds while Claire escapes to the house and cries with the real Finn over Adam's death. Later, a logging company start to cut down the forest, and the fungus substance is revealed to be on several logs being driven away.
Cast
*
Joseph Mawle
Joseph Daniel Turner Mawle (born 21 March 1974) is an English actor. Mawle is best known for his roles as Benjen Stark in ''Game of Thrones'', Detective Inspector Jedediah Shine in '' Ripper Street'', Firebrace in '' Birdsong'', Jesus Christ in ...
as Adam Hitchens
*
Bojana Novakovic
Bojana Novakovic (, sr-Latn, Bojana Novaković) is a Serbian-Australian actress. She is best known for her role as Det. Lizzie Needham on the drama television series '' Instinct'' (2017–2018).
Novakovic's film roles include '' Drag Me to He ...
as Claire Hitchens
*
Michael McElhatton
Michael McElhatton (born 12 September 1963) is an Irish actor and writer. He is best known for playing the role of Roose Bolton in the HBO series ''Game of Thrones''. He joined the series as a guest star in the Game of Thrones (season 2), sec ...
as Colm Donnelly
*
Michael Smiley
Michael Smiley (born 1963) is a Northern Irish comedian and actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the films ''Kill List'' (2011) and ''The Lobster'' (2015).
Early life
Smiley was born in 1963 in Belfast and grew up in Holywood with a ...
as Garda Davey
Production
Development
The film was written to segue from a relationship drama into more of a dark fairytale, and the pacing matched this transition. Hardy wanted to touch upon many different subgenres of horror, including
body horror
Body horror or biological horror is a subgenre of horror that intentionally showcases grotesque or psychologically disturbing violations of the human body. These violations may manifest through aberrant sex, mutations, mutilation, zombification, ...
and
creature feature
A monster movie, monster film, creature feature or giant monster film is a film that focuses on one or more characters struggling to survive attacks by one or more antagonistic monsters, often abnormally large ones. The film may also fall under ...
.
Inspirations for the film were Hardy's love for fairytales,
Ray Harryhausen
Raymond Frederick Harryhausen (June 29, 1920 – May 7, 2013) was an American-British animator and special effects creator who created a form of stop motion model animation known as "Dynamation". His works include the animation for '' Might ...
(with whom Hardy was close friends), and horror films like ''
The Evil Dead
''The Evil Dead'' is a 1981 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Sam Raimi, produced by Robert Tapert and executive produced by Raimi, Tapert, and Bruce Campbell, who also starred alongside Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeMan ...
'', ''
Alien
Alien primarily refers to:
* Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country
** Enemy alien, the above in times of war
* Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth
** Specifically, intelligent extrater ...
'', and ''
The Thing''. It was pitched as "''
Straw Dogs'' meets ''
Pan's Labyrinth
''Pan's Labyrinth'' ( es, El laberinto del fauno, lit=The Labyrinth of the Faun, links=no) is a 2006 dark fantasy horror film written, directed and co-produced by Guillermo del Toro. A Spanish-Mexican(78% Spanish production, 22% Mexican productio ...
''".
Although Hardy is a fan of vampires, werewolves, and zombies, he felt that there were already enough films based around those monsters, and he wanted to do something less overexposed. He decided on using Irish folktales as a base. As a fan of Mawle, Hardy wrote the lead role for him.
Filming
Shooting took place in Ireland for six weeks.
[ Hardy wanted to keep the shooting "as real as possible". This involved shooting on location in forests and around lakes, including one scene where Hardy wore a wetsuit to shoot from inside a lake. Continuing this theme of realism, Hardy focused on giving the narrative a more rational, scientific base than the traditional magic-based fable.] Martijn van Broekhuizen was the cinematographer. van Broekhuizen and Hardy had not worked together previously, but van Broekhuizen was aware of his work. After talking together on Skype, van Broekhuizen was impressed with Hardy's ability to clearly express his vision. van Broekhuizen credited his work on a Dutch film in which he shot complex nighttime scenes in a forest as the reason why he was hired for ''The Hallow''. Shooting took place with an Arri Alexa
The Arri Alexa (stylised as ΛLEXΛ) is a digital motion picture camera system developed by Arri. First introduced in April 2010, the camera was Arri's first major transition into digital cinematography after previous efforts such as the Arr ...
digital camera, and the lighting was designed to evoke a fairytale atmosphere. Hardy had wanted to shoot on film, but budget limitations prevented this. Hardy characterized the production as having both "good fear" and "bad fear": the good kind inspired them to perform to the best of their ability, and the bad kind caused them to be averse to taking risks. Hardy credited his confidence in the production as raising morale when they were performing long shoots in rural locations.
The creatures were done by British SFX artist John Nolan, whom Hardy sought out in an effort to find what he called the British equivalent to Stan Winston
Stanley Winston (April 7, 1946 – June 15, 2008) was an American television and film Prosthetic makeup, special make-up effects creator, best known for his work in the Terminator (franchise), ''Terminator'' series, the first three ''Jurassic Pa ...
or Rob Bottin
Robin R. Bottin (born April 1, 1959) is an American special make-up effects creator. Known for his collaborations with directors John Carpenter, Paul Verhoeven and David Fincher, Bottin worked with Carpenter on both '' The Fog'' and '' The Th ...
. The effects were primarily practical.[ The creatures were a mix of practical effects and CGI. Although a fan of old-school "man in a rubber suit" effects, Hardy took advantage of modern technology to augment the look of the creatures. In order to make the creatures more unsettling, their limbs were extended using practical effects, as Hardy believed a full-CGI monster would not be scary. This allowed the filmmakers to use on-set lighting to heighten the creepiness. This was inspired in part by ''Alien''. The baby seen in the film is a mix of animatronics and twins that were digitally shot in front of a blue screen.][ The effects were inspired in part by the 2001 version of '']Planet of the Apes
''Planet of the Apes'' is an American science fiction media franchise consisting of films, books, television series, comics, and other media about a world in which humans and intelligent apes clash for control. The franchise is based on Frenc ...
'', which Hardy said "mixed those gritty real environments with the slick performance capture to blur the lines".[
]
Reception
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, a review aggregator, reports that 73% of 56 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 6.2/10. The site's consensus reads: "Drenched in dark atmosphere and bolstered with some real emotion underneath all the chills, ''The Hallow'' suggests a wonderfully horrifying future for director Corin Hardy." It has a score of 65/100 on Metacritic based on 12 reviews. Geoff Berkshire of ''Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' wrote, "It takes time for ''The Hallow'' to get rolling, but once it reaches a bang-up final act, genre fans could walk out clamoring for a sequel." David Rooney of ''The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'' wrote, "As first films go, this one is visually energized, dynamically paced and discerning in its cine-literate references. It's also a kickass calling card for Hardy as he moves on to bigger projects." Michael Roffman of ''Consequence of Sound
''Consequence'' (previously ''Consequence of Sound'') is an independently owned New York-based online magazine featuring news, editorials, and reviews of music, movies, and television. In addition, the website also features the Festival Outlook ...
'' rated it C− and wrote, "Despite a number of supremely original sequences – one of which involves a car trunk, another a cavernous dwelling – they’re all carried out rather predictably, cinching any warranted tension within seconds." Fred Topel of Bloody Disgusting
Bloody Disgusting is an American multi-media company, which began as a horror genre-focused news site/website specializing in information services that covered various horror medias, including: film, television, video games, comics, and music. ...
rated it 4/5 stars and called for sequels to revisit the film's mythology, which he praised.
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hallow, The
2015 films
2015 horror films
British independent films
Films set in forests
Films set in Ireland
Films shot in Ireland
Irish horror films
Folk horror films
Irish independent films
2015 independent films
English-language Irish films
British body horror films
2010s supernatural horror films
Films based on Celtic mythology
2015 directorial debut films
2010s English-language films
2010s British films