Review of The Hallow (2015) by Lxquickjustice — 15 Feb 2016

I've been waiting for this movie for a long time, and though I did enjoy it, there are a few serious issues that kept the Hallow from becoming a cult classic. First off, let me say the setting was fantastic.

Roose Bolton is your neighbor in Ireland and there are fairies in the woods? SIGN ME UP! That being said, the movie did suffer immensely by introducing Roose and then not using him. To avoid spoilers, I'll just put it like this.

He shows up, steals the show, tells the wife to tell her husband he had BETTER come see him tonight, so he can warn him about what he's been doing in the woods... And it never happens. That's really disappointing.

I was all psyched for a Roose scare fest, and for the protagonists to ignore his warnings until it was too late, but instead, it just kind of happens... all at once... in the same night... To me, that was a serious pacing issue.

I kept thinking, "this isn't really the point of no return yet, is it?" Oh... It is? o_0 Oooook... I was hoping for more buildup, but alright. Michael McElhatton is used again, but not to the extent I wanted.

The last thing that bothered me, and really kind of made it a meh experience overall, was the nature of the fairy creatures themselves. I won't spoil too much, but I also expected a bit more intrigue regarding their nature, and wanted to see more monster variety.

At one point the monsters achieve an impressive psychological and supernatural feat, but by this point in the movie, the explanation for what they are made them feel much more like animals and fungus, an infection, and not much more.

Believe me, I WANTED more supernatural stuff, but by the point it happened, the movie had already kind of scientifically explained away the situation. So all in all, I give it a 7. It was really disappointing for me, but only because I was looking forward to it for a long time.

People who have just discovered the movie may have a much better time. It was nice seeing Michael McElhatton outside of Game of Thrones but he was woefully underutilized.