You know what I love? Old (relatively speaking) Syfy movies. You may not remember this, but back a few years ago, Syfy would do all day movie marathons on Saturdays, culminating in their movie of the week. So, for instance, you’d have snake/gator day, with a prime-time showing of something like Gatoroid vs. Mega Python or similar absurdities. The best of these movies knew how cheesy they were, and that gave them the freedom to just go for it. And in the end, you’d have a not half bad film. (This was pre-Asylum days, when people still cared about such things.) Movies like Rock Monster? Love it.
Seriously, it’s the best.
Now, if only The Hollow had followed that formula.
The Hollow is a movie about three sisters who like to scream a lot and are going to live with their aunt on one of those crazy, mist-covered islands you can only reach by ferry. See, their parents were killed in a car wreck. Oh and the youngest one has mental problems because she watched them get burned alive.
Laugh a minute.
Problem is, they picked a real damn bad time to visit this island, because it’s Halloween Eve, and on All Hallows Eve Eve a hundreds years ago the townspeople decided to burn some witches at the stake.
In 1915. In Canada. Cause why not, eh?
Anywho, the burning witches called down a curse that every hundred years, an avenging spirit will return to kill everyone on the island. This particular beastie is a burning wickerman looking thing that has a penchant for coming up the drain pipe. Can the sisters survive to the end? And the even bigger question, do we want them to?
Though it’s almost worth it for the scene where one of the locals repeatedly begs the sisters to be quiet so they won’t alert the monster to their presence, and yet they just keep on screaming.
Almost.
As much as I enjoyed those Syfy movies with heart, there’s not much worse than the Syfy movies without it. Unfortunately, The Hollow would fall well within that latter category. You could do a lot better this Halloween season. But it would be hard to do much worse.
2 Stars
Beware The Shadows 