Hallow, The

Released by: Shout! Factory/IFC
Released on: April 5th, 2016.
Director: Corin Hardy
Cast: Joseph Mawle, Bojana Novakovic, Michael McElhatton, Michael Smiley, Gary Lydon, Stuart Graham
Year: 2015
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The Movie:

Directed and co-written by Corin Hardy, The Hallow takes place in rural Ireland where Adam Hitchens (Joseph Mawle), a conservationist from London, has recently relocated with his wife Claire (Bojana Novakovic) and their infant son Finn. When the film begins, Adam is wandering through the woods near their aged home collecting samples when his dog alerts him to the corpse of a deer rotting away in an outlying building. Here he finds some strange spores that he takes back for further examination.

While Adam is out doing his job, Claire is visited by Colm Donnelly (Michael McElhatton), a man who lives nearby. His behavior is strange - he wants Adam to stay out of the woods and continuously warns Claire that her husband is trespassing. Adam isn't really fazed by much of this until, later that night, strange things start to happen in the house. Black goop leaks from the ceiling onto Finn's bedding. The dog starts acting erratically. Something crashes through the window that night but the cops tell them it must have been a bird. As time passes, there are more frequent and intense occurrences and it gets to the point where they decide that in order to survive, they'll have to flee -but whatever it is that was out in the woods… it doesn't want them to leave.

You can sum up The Hallow by describing it as a dark fairytale that mixes elements of creature features like Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark with home invasion horror like Straw Dogs. Steeped in Irish folklore, the story brings in the 'creatures in your house' element of the first movie and places it in remote town basing it around a pair of unwelcome outsiders, similar to what Peckinpah did in the latter film. We also see Adam's character take on a similar arc to that traversed by Dustin Hoffman in Straw Dogs - a fairly passive man forced to resort to violence in order to protect what is his and those whom he cares for. Of course, the end results are quite different but it's not a stretch to see similarities in the setup.

Shot on location in Ireland, the camera does a fine job of capturing the remote beauty of the area where all of this takes place. The cinematography from Martijn van Broekhuizen is impressive not just in how it shows off the landscape but also in how it frames certain aspects of the action. In the scene where the family tries to flee, the innards of Adam's car become overrun with thick, black roots. As Adam stands in front of the car and pulls them out, we see this done from the point of view of the engine, so that the expression of fear on his face is visible. As this happens, the film cleverly cuts back and forth between Adam in front and Claire in the driver's seat trying to start the engine. When we shift to Claire's point of view we're then able to see through her eyes what is happening behind them in the car's rearview mirror. It's one of a few scenes that are shot very effectively with an eye towards hinting at the horror circling the family rather than rubbing your face in it and the movie is all the better for it.

Performances are pretty solid here. Michael McElhatton as the surly and mysterious neighbor is a welcome presence in the film playing his part well without giving too much away. Bojana Novakovic, probably best known for appearing in Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell, is also very good, creating a genuinely sympathetic character. Joseph Mawle has the most to do in the film. The actor, who will be very familiar to Game Of Thrones fans and who also appeared in The Awakening, shows good range here and it's interesting to see how his character changes as the story evolves.

As things head towards their conclusion the storyline does tend to get a little predictable but getting there is a really fun ride if you're into horror films about things that go bump in the night or, like so many of us, find the woods a creepy place to be at night. The folklore aspect of the story gives it some originality and the effects, which are a mix of practical and digital effects, are typically well done and quite eerie.

Video/Audio/Extras:

The Hallow arrives on Blu-ray in a beautiful AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 2.39.1 widescreen. Although much of the film takes place at night in fairly dim light, colors are still really nicely reproduced here, especially the day time scenes that take place outside in the forest. Skin tones look good, detail is consistently impressive and black levels are nice and strong. The image is free of any compression artifacts or obvious edge enhancement and shadow detail is pretty solid. This is a really strong picture, the movie looks great on Blu-ray. The film was shot digitally on an Arri Alexa camera, so there's no print damage, dirt or debris to note.

English language DTS-HD tracks are provided in 5.1 and 2.0 Stereo, both sound quite good with the 5.1 mix obviously doing a better job of spreading out some of the effects and the score and therefore getting the edge. The last half of the movie uses a fairly aggressive sound mix and the rear channels get a bit of a work out here. Bass is strong and powerful without burying things while dialogue stays clean, clear and easily discernible. Optional subtitles are provided in English and Spanish.

The extensive selection of extras starts off with an audio commentary from director Corin Hardy who manages to cover a lot of interesting ground in his talk. He discusses the inspiration for the story, shooting on location, how the film blends practical and digital effects, the use of music in the film, why the cast members were chosen and quite a bit more.

From there, check out the fifty-one minute documentary, Surviving The Fairytale: The Making Of The Hallow, which is an extensive mix of interviews and footage relating to how the film was put together. There's a lot of insight from the cast and crew here and some interesting behind the scenes material. It's well put together and it does a fine job of exploring in a lot of detail just what went into this movie and why. From there we get a few shorter, more specific featurettes, each running just over two minutes: Behind-The-Scenes: The Story looks at the writing that created the tale told in the feature, Behind-The-Scenes: Influence talks briefly about other works that influenced Hardy's decisions behind the camera and Behind-the-Scenes: Practical F/X shows off the creature suits and other props/effects work that was conjured up for the movie.

Aside from that we get a few still galleries - a Director's storyboards gallery, a Director's sketchbook gallery, The Book Of Invasions original illustrations gallery, a creature concepts gallery - a theatrical trailer for the feature, menus and chapter selection. Trailers for a few unrelated IFC properties play before the main menu screen loads and the Blu-ray case fits nicely inside a cardboard slipcover featuring some alternate cover art.

The Final Word:

The Hallow follows some horror clichés in its last half but has enough going for it in terms of originality and intensity that, when coupled with the fantastic visuals, solid sound design and good performances, make this a pretty entertaining watch. The Blu-ray release from Shout! Factory and IFC looks and sounds great and it's pretty stacked with extras as well. A great package for horror fans overall.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!