Hollows Grove

I was lucky enough to see a pre-screening of this movie, but I have to say that if I paid too see it in theaters, I wouldn't have been disappointed. For a scary movie, especially a low budget one, this is really good. Initially everybody watching it with me complained about the slow build and the fact that we were sick of the flood of "home movie" style scary movies. But this movie made up did it all very well. For starters, the home movie style isn't the same as in most movies. The camera isn't constantly running, shaking, flipping, and falling. It's steady for about 90% of the movie, and I thoroughly appreciate that. And the slow build I spoke about earlier is necessary, it helped me to settle in before it scared me. Which it definitely did. It didn't do it with crazy cheap scares or jump scenes, but with that slow build I mentioned earlier. It built the tension and then cut through it. The characters are pretty well developed and the acting is good. Nobody is going to win any Oscars for this, but I wasn't left wanting anything from the actors. Everybody played their part, and they played it well. The story is the usual "we go to a haunted place and discover it's actually haunted" but the perspective is pretty different. Though the movie was semi-predictable, it kept me and everybody I watched it with on the edge of our seats, especially near the end. My only real complaint about this movie is the beginning and end scenes with the detective. It made it seem too much like an interactive movie at Universal Studios or something. But stay after the credits, and the bad ending scene makes up for itself.

Competent found footage film. That being said, rather tired retread of situations, conflict between ghost hunter crew members, and annoying immature characters. Big names are in it minimally, for about a total of four brief scenes, so don't expect much from them.

Horrible first 20 min, skip over it, nothing important happens. Either these actors are just playing themselves whining and arguing and joking around or they are magnificent. They come off as complete loud (had to adjust volume) idiots for the first 20 min. After that some plot kicks in and things get better.

I enjoyed some of it but I wouldn't recommend it if you find loud annoying people aggravating. The haunted stuff is cool.

Hate to repeat but IMBD wants me to text more. I seriously recommend jumping past the first 20min. There is a cool creepy hallway scene but I won't spoil it for you :)

Lance Henrikson has become a horror icon. He's protected the Antichrist, fought the Terminator, battled demons, Aliens and Predators. He's been in over 200 movies and now he's in a found footage horror movie. Too bad he only has 2 scenes.

I went into this thinking it would be along the lines of Grave Encounters, which I really like, and it sort of is. The problem is that it's missing most of the scares. Whereas Grave Encounters went right for the jugular, this one has most of the spooky stuff happening off camera (singing and whispering heard, things disappearing when an area is returned to). The setting is creepy and some genuinely frightening stuff happens near the end, but it is almost too late by then.

Hollows Grove did keep me interested throughout however and is definitely worth a watch for fans of these types of movies. 6.5/10.

Yet another movie trying to take advance of the presence of this God of cinema called Lance Henriksen, putting him almost on the cover but not so much on the screen. Don't know why he puts up with this, he can and always will do better than this!

Now about the movie: I've seen too many like this. Nothing new out of production, acting, plot, scares, ideas, only difference between movies like this or SxTape, Grave Encounters and so many others simply consist on the director's decision or sometimes on the length of the film. Here, they kept it short, I do appreciate quality over quantity but as said they brought absolutely nothing new. Reason to recommend it? Only to pass the time if you are in the dying need of a time killer.

No point in saying more than needed, watch it, don't watch it, it all comes up to you. If you do so, expect the expected, you'll get just that. Another typical found footage film, with a crew going inside an abandoned hospital where strange things begin to happen. Ba da dumb!

Cheers!