For
W.G. Sebald, Suffolk was the perfect place for the famous walk and literary
digressions that became The Rings of Saturn. For two dysfunctional
couples, it will become a place of supernatural menace. The hanging tree will get its due in Michael
Axelgaard’s found footage shocker, Hollow
(trailer
here), which
is now available through Tribeca Films’ VOD platforms.
Emma
has come to close the country cottage of her beloved late minister
grandfather. For company, she has
brought along her smug fiancé Scott, her torch-carrying childhood chum James,
and Lynne, the girlfriend he hardly seems to know. Evidently for estate reasons, Emma wants
James to document the process as her videographer. Considering we are watching footage recovered
by the East Anglia constabulary, it is safe to say their weekend does not go
well.
James’
camera was found in a large hollow tree that always gave Emma the creeps—and for
good reason. According to legend, a monk
and his illicit lover hung themselves there centuries ago. Ever since it has attracted suicidal couples
like an evil magnet. Obviously,
circumstances will lure the quartet back to the notorious spot, but not before
they get high and indulge in a spot of strip poker. However, the power has already been shut off
at the cottage, so they will rely on candles and the spotlight on James’ camera
for illumination.
Frankly,
the full backstory of Hollow is pretty
distinctive and the sequences shot in the ruins of the nearby monastery are
genuinely creepy. The James’
increasingly apparent instability further cranks up the tension. However, Axelgaard hews too closely to the Blair Witch playbook during the rather
predictable third act. Still,
producer-screenwriter Matthew Holt’s dialogue has a little snap to it (that’s a
little, not a lot).
Whitechapel co-star Sam Stockman
decently portrays James’ ambiguously off mental state without doing the full
Norman Bates. As Scott, Matt Stokoe
unleashes his inner cad, which is something.
While Jessica Ellerby’s Lynne is not a total victim waiting to be
strung-up, Emily Plumtree’s Emma sort of is, making the female characters a
wash overall.
It
is important to know Hollow is not
exactly tactful in its treatment of religious themes. The late grandfather’s successor is
definitely not portrayed in a sympathetic light. Likewise, Scott the hedonist shows a
disrespect for the cross that would cause riots throughout the Muslim world had
it been directed towards the Koran. Yet
somehow, Americans will be able to shrug it off and get on to their lives (of
course, there is also a strong likely he will pay for his excesses in proper
E.C. Comics fashion).
