Plot

In 1988, Claudia Brenner and Rebecca Wight went camping in the Michaux State Forest in Pennsylvania. Spending time together as a couple, they believed they were alone. As they moved along the trail they encountered Stephen Roy Carr a "mountain man" carrying a shotgun across his shoulders. Despite the strange encounter, the couple did not think much of it. Later on, Claudia and Rebecca set up camp at a remote site in the forest. It was there that Stephen Roy Carr followed them and shot at them eight times from the bushes. Rebecca was hit twice, one wound proving fatal. Claudia, while hit five times in the neck, head, face and arm survived and found her way to safety. Miraculously, she recovered fully. Carr was found to have committed these crimes due to his severe homophobia and so-called "provocation" at witnessing a lesbian couple. Carr now serves a life sentence without parole. Brenner has since written a book titled "Eight Bullets" about the events that occurred in the forest and the resulting investigation and trial. Today she is an activist who works tirelessly to fight anti-gay violence, using her own traumatic experience as an example.—Jesse Turk

In May 1988, girlfriends Claudia Brenner and Rebecca Wight were attacked while hiking the Appalachian Trail by a 'mountain man' named Stephen Roy Carr. Combining documentary and narrative material, IN THE HOLLOW tells the story of the shooting, Wight's death, and Brenner's desperate survival (and later transformation into an advocate for hate crime legislation in the U.S.) as she returns to the trail for the first time since the shooting.