The Hollow 2016 - REVIEW

Horror doesn't always mean blood, gore and slashers. True horror, in my opinion, has always been what one human can do to another. The evil of man is far scarier than the content of any film. Stephen King said, “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” And Scooby Doo taught us from a very young age that that was true. Yes, I just used Stephen King and Scooby Doo in the same example. Get over it.

When a U.S. congressman's daughter passing through a small town in Mississippi dies in a mysterious triple homicide, a team of F.B.I. agents descends to investigate, the team's brilliant but jaded lead agent Vaughn Killinger (James Callis) battling demons both past and present, as his beautiful, tough-as-nails partner, Sarah Desoto (Christiane Seidel) tries to hold him and the case together. They find a struggling and corrupt sheriff's department, a shadowy and much-feared figure, Big John Dawson (William Forsythe), who seems to be pulling all of the town's strings from his mansion on the edge of town and a local victim with a strange connection to a number of the town's most prominent figures.

The Hollow is billed as a crime, drama, mystery... I know, I know, we're a horror site... it happens, however I felt it leaned more toward the drama side. The film seemed to focus less on the murders and more on the struggles of a self destructive, alcoholic FBI agent and his partner who also happens to be his girlfriend. We're also led through the corruption inside the local sheriff's department, in particular the life of one of the deputies. When they finally reveal who the killer is, it feels quite disappointing. We're not given anything visual, the entire thing is scripted so it's a bit of a let down.

With a cast of seasoned actors, I was really expecting some phenomenal performances and The Hollow just didn't deliver. I'm not sure if it was due to the weak script but I just wasn't feeling the commitment. Not even from one of my favorite actors, William Sadler. The ingredients were there and the film had a solid foundation, it just never quite found it's footing. I would've liked to have seen them delve more into the murders and the investigation. We got zero information on one of the victims and very little about another. Who were they? The main reason the FBI was sent there to begin with was because a Congressman's daughter was murdered yet we are told absolutely nothing about her. The Hollow is a slow burn without much payoff in the end.