Deep in the heart of the Suffolk countryside,
Deep in the heart of
the Suffolk countryside, by a ruined monastery, stands the shell of an ugly,
twisted tree, cursed by an ancient evil
which seduces seemingly happy, loving couples into committing suicide by
hanging themselves from its branches.
When Emma (Emily Plumtree),
her fiancé Scott (Matt Stokoe), her
best friend James (Sam Stockman) and
his new girlfriend Lynne (Jessica
Ellerby) decide to spend a weekend in the country at her dead grandfather’s
(He used to be the local priest! Ahhhhh!) cottage they become
fascinated by tales of the local suicide spot and start questioning the locals
(well the new priest and a fisherman anyway) about the legends, the obsessive
James filming everything with his video camera.
But when the power fails at the farm, the group’s increasingly
drunken and coke-fuelled revelries expose uncomfortable home truths (James has
always loved Emma, Scott’s an obnoxious philanderer, Lynne’s a bit slutty, Emma
weeps more than a drunk, 30-something singleton watching Beaches alone on Valentine’s Day) that threaten to destroy
them…
Another week, another mediocre low-budget, found footage horror film
full of British soap actors squealing hysterically and jumping at shadows while
running around a field in Suffolk in the middle of the night. Starring refugees from Hollyoaks and Holby City, Hollow is
everything you expect it to be from its tension-destroying opening where a
police spokesman tells us that the bodies of four young people were found
hanging from the tree, thus eradicating
any reason to watch the film, through to its murky climax where the four
are assailed by an unseen force that manages never to be caught on camera. A mediocre exercise in futility, Hollow offers no surprises other than
the fact filmmakers are still aping The
Blair Witch Project by making these soulless, pedestrian, found footage
films.