Village Voice by Pete Vonder Haar
The Hallow offers plenty of scares and is unnerving from wire to wire, wrapping up the second act with a bang and red-lining the tension until the end.
Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
Corin Hardy
Cast
Joseph Mawle,
Bojana Novaković,
Michael McElhatton,
Michael Smiley,
Gary Lydon,
Stuart Graham
Genre
Fantasy,
Horror
A family who moved into a remote mill house in Ireland with an infant son find themselves in a fight for survival against banshees, baby snatchers, and other demonic creatures living in the woods. This film cleverly twists and deforms the genres of fairy tales and children’s fables into a nightmare horror.
Village Voice by Pete Vonder Haar
The Hallow offers plenty of scares and is unnerving from wire to wire, wrapping up the second act with a bang and red-lining the tension until the end.
Philadelphia Inquirer by Tirdad Derakhshani
Amid all the horror and the black ooze, there emerges a deeply touching story about the power of love.
Screen Daily by Charles Gant
Corin Hardy makes a slick, confident debut with supernatural horror The Hallow. Demonstrating a facility with storytelling almost as skilful as his nimble orchestration of animatronics and visual effects.
Los Angeles Times by Noel Murray
This backwoods monster movie boasts compelling performances, eye-catching creatures and an effective blend of practical and digital effects.
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
[Hardy] proves himself both a gifted visual stylist and an assured storyteller with a wicked grasp of sustained dread.
Variety by Geoff Berkshire
The directorial debut of visual artist Corin Hardy is never less than arresting to the eye, but thin characters and a familiar story hold this Irish chiller back from entering the top tier of recent horror entries.
Screen International by Charles Gant
Corin Hardy makes a slick, confident debut with supernatural horror The Hallow. Demonstrating a facility with storytelling almost as skilful as his nimble orchestration of animatronics and visual effects.
RogerEbert.com by Simon Abrams
The Hallow also de-emphasizes human drama to the point where it often feels like a Jenga tower of set pieces, a disappointing fact that's most apparent during the film's first 40 minutes.
Slant Magazine by Christopher Gray
The film never really digs into its suggested themes of gentrification, domestic turmoil, or backwoods folklore, but most of its effectiveness stems from a kitchen-sink approach to genre clichés.
Washington Post by Pat Padua
In a departure from the sexually active teens of most slasher movies, The Hallow plays on more grown-up fears: keeping your family safe and steering clear of a vengeful Mother Nature.
Time Out London by Cath Clarke
Rather than letting the CGI do all the graft, Hardy unleashes a beautifully handcrafted army of puppets and animatronic demonic creatures. Too many, too soon, really. It’s overkill and pretty quickly you’re suffering from fiend fatigue.
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
Mr. Hardy, however, would rather busy himself with reminders of earlier creature features.... Luckily, John Nolan’s old-school effects are wicked good, and Martijn van Broekhuizen’s mossy photography is pleasingly sinister.
CineVue by Jamie Neish
What starts out as creepy descends into a creature feature that's more laughable than scary.
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