It’s Halloween eve on Shelter Island, and the small town is preparing for a killer storm. But the dark clouds gathering over the island are bringing with them a curse one-hundred years in waiting. As the woods give birth to an ungodly and insatiable creature of fire, bones, and earth, three sisters must scramble to stay alive through the long dark night of the Hollow. For it’s not something you can kill. It’s only something you can try and survive.
Syfy has a problem. Usually that problem is poor writing, cheesy effects and bad actors. The Hollow seems to only be plagued by a bad story.
Although I liked the effects, scenery and creature design.. this film was really lacking in story telling and character writing. Especially when it came down to our three protagonists.
- Oldest Sister, Sarah. Knows it all, over protective, shoots down the most basic of logic if it counteracts her ideas. Even at the cost of life.
- Middle Sister, Marley. Half way sensible. Defiant against Sarah’s obviously bad ideas, but still over protective of the youngest sister.
- Youngest Sister, Emma. The baby of the family, this girl is completely incapable of any sort of strength, or logical thought. Constantly gets into trouble at the cost of other’s lives.
- The townsfolk. Know they should get out of town, but a few stick around anyway. They’re only purpose seems to be jumping in the path of the demon, so the sisters can make a get away. Trust me, without the idiot townsfolk, those girls would have been dead within the first 20 minutes of the film.
It should be noted that the only thing these three sisters seem to be good at are shouting each other’s names, at the top of their lungs, even when trying to hide from the monster.
I think this movie could have been saved with a better writing staff, a little more money into production, and getting the hell away from the SyFy team.
I enjoyed the creature. I thought its design and function was very good.. although it paused to look back at the camera way too much. It could have caught those girls easily. For example, in one scene, Marley goes into a store, is stopped by one of the townsfolk and warned to leave, just as he’s killed by the demon.. the demon then roars and stinks back into the shadows.. only to give Marley time to run outside where it (unsuccessfully) attacks again.. killing her right there would have been very easy.
The story is flawed at its very core. There were no “Witch Burnings” or prosecution in the american north west. Hell, the area depicted was hardly settled at that time.
As for the movie, as a whole.. I didnt hate it. I just think it could have been better.
