This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

This movie is stupid. It is convoluted, incoherent and a waste of time to try to understand. It seems the only purpose of this "movie" is to exploit and abuse women and get away with it. I'm surprised the lead actress doesn't have shaken brain syndrome. The much larger male actor shook her violently in a way that would damage the neck and head. Seeing as how it was made in Korea, I would suspect there is no consequences for such behavior. Furthermore, I looked for her bio and found little info. I am wondering if she is over 18. I can't imagine what the purpose of this film was. I see no purpose. It was not scary, or interesting or entertaining. It was boring as the 1 star rating indicates, but mostly it was sick and twisted. The lead 2 actress also appeared physically abused and disrespected. There is no redeeming quality to this "movie". I wanted to vomit.

After watching Black Hollow Cage, aka The Dark Portal, I think it was brilliant. Never over-explained, but I understood completely, and in that understanding a powerful story told succinctly. No extra words, just eloquence and consequence. #BlackhollowcageMy Rating 10/10

Was drawn into seeing 'Black Hollow Cage' with a cool poster/cover, a very intriguing and creative premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive. 'Black Hollow Cage' is a film it doesn't do enough with its potential (although there are far bigger wastes of potential in film) and could have been much better, can't say that it is a great film because it isn't. It is not a terrible film though, as far as recent low-budget film viewings go it's one of the better and more watchable ones easily. It certainly could have been far worse, considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre at best and irredeemably terrible at worst.Lets start with the positives. The scenery is atmospheric and spooky and 'Black Hollow Cage' is surprisingly well shot and easy on the eye, was expecting a cheap looking film and to me that wasn't the case here. The music is suitably ominous.Found that the acting was not bad, doing their best with disappointingly nowhere near enough material to work with, found it better than average if not much more.Also that there were a few nice twists that intrigued and weren't telegraphed too early.Unfortunately, the story does feel paper thin, disjointed and over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. The less said about the weird dog character the better. The effects are ropy at best.Dialogue can be stilted and rambling, with lots of clichés and no depth whatsoever (definitely one of the worst assets), while the pace goes to a standstill very quickly and drags with very little going on worth caring about. Found too many the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense. Tonally, it feels unfocused and muddled from trying to do too much.There are a good deal of underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical character motivations, while too many of the things to make you jump or shocked are far from creative or scary and are pretty tame. There is not enough threat here and what there is of it tends to be used poorly, it is completely unimaginative and more odd than creepy, with little sense of horror or urgency. Some badly sagging momentum too. The direction is leaden, inexperience seems to be all over the film. There is a general lack of creativity and shocks.Faring the weakest, other than the script, are the sound and editing. The sound is too echoey and often without warning or reason and makes some of the voices sound strange. The editing is haphazard and affects the coherence of some of the goings on and story structure.Overall, not great but worth a one time watch. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Pretty good repeating time travel premise mystery that never quite gets it right.It's the old "would you kill Hitler in retrospect?" scenario, except without Hitler. Something's definitely wrong here. People have been hurt. People have died. People will die. "Black Hollow Cage" is a dark, moody, seether of a film, that bends an original linear tale with subsequent plot twists. It is clever, perhaps a bit too much for its own good.There is a father, a cold, meticulous gent. There is a daughter, a proper girl with explosive teen rages. There is a house, an architectural marvel of glassy modernity in the middle of a bush. There is an odd black box that cranks up the sci-fi angle. And there are a couple of visitors, sketchy and unsettling. Oh and a talking dog. Did I mention the talking dog? There's a talking dog.The looping begins, history is revealed, and an inevitable conflict arises. All this is played out in careful steps, brooding cinematography, and a creepy soundtrack. "Black Hollow Cage" just needs a better, tighter bow on the final present to wrap everything up, and to explain the talking dog.