Hallow Road

For a story that's mostly set in the tight confines of a car, where conversations both in person, over phone, drive the narrative, the themes explored are surprisingly captivating, rich with psychological and supernatural contexts.

It kicks off at a slower pace, adopting a cautious tone, but once we move from "Act 1," there's an evident shift in gear and thereby in urgency, as everything starts to unravel in a way that has the potential to surprise the susceptible audience, given they have not already blindly guessed 'the twist' by then.

The suspense builds to a point where you can practically feel its indomitable presence taking over the storytelling. That said, the short length and a fairly disappointing conclusion might leave a a bitter aftertaste, though ambiguious nature of the ending would most likely be celebrated.

This film had so much potential yet failed to delivery the major blow to be classed as a wonderful thriller. Yes, it's pretty clear that this is a storyline example of trauma/parenthood, but I think it could have been projected in better light at the end. The film itself wasn't all bad, the acting was good and it was actually quite believable up until quite late on. Half way through this film I had it down for a possible 7/8 but sadly the meaningless/emotion-only ending left it somewhat short of that mark.

The film was fantastic in places, and highly original in terms of content, but the whole point of the movie was the worry, the panic, and the racing rush from everyone to get to their destination; and yet the man driving could have pushed his car faster. The trees and streetlights passing by the car windows at 4cm-an-hour ruined the panic. How anyone at all can say 'They rushed to the scene' must have a car made of plasticine. The editor also forgot to put the engine noise in, yet dropped it back in on the gear changes - ?

I like films like this, ones that are single scene phone conversations. Whilst not up to the classic (in my opinion) 'Locke', Hallow road uses the conceit well enough to grip your attention for most of its short runtime. Going into it just having read the short IMDB synopsis also helped me to appreciate the unfolding plot, so that's what I suggest you do. Some repetitive dialogue and a not entirely satisfying ending drag this down to a 6/10. But it is overall, an atmospheric and tense 80 minutes.

I feel a bit gaslit by this one as critics and audience reviews are pretty good but I just didn't connect with it.

Hallow Road takes place in near real time mostly inside of a car as two parents race to the scene of an accident (on "Hallow Road") their daughter has been involved in. I say "near" real time because the drive is only 40 minutes and yet surely takes up longer in the movie as it's ~80%+ of the runtime.

The problem for me is that this felt like a cheap episode of a TV drama that would be shown on ITV. The parents were annoying, particularly the father and the car setting began to get tedious, especially every time the sat-nav told the audience how far we had to go. For some this will rachet up tension and desperation to get there quicker, but for me the journey felt like a slow crawl.

For me the ending left much to be desired. An earlier throwaway line about how the parents "will never find resolution" felt like expectations management from the director - when I heard this I prepared for the worst and was still disappointed. Another cop out ending in a critically acclaimed indie movie? Surely not?!

The second twist is revealed when the lights come up, but this one itself was largely guessable if you were paying attention - but even if you weren't, spelling it out in this fashion felt like an odd bolt-on to the movie. It would have benefitted from being included in the film and not the credits.

Overall Hallow Road is a largely tepid, slightly creepy story of parents rushing to the aid of the child but I now grow weary of so many indie films choosing to use amibiguity as a means to add weight to their story. Sometimes I would just like a tied up ending.