If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

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

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

How does this film have a 6.4 on IMDB? The bots are at it again. This film is horrendous- and maddening. You just want to watch couple fight and flirt with each other- only to fight again? You've found your movie. You want to watch a movie that has weird animal (birds flying, ants crawling on hands) transitions? You've got it here! Unlikable characters. Barely any plot. Nothing scary. This movie is a dumpsterfire- and the world needs to know it.

HOLLOW is the British version of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, or should I say the British rip-off because this is a complete riff on that classic film. Of course, it's nowhere near as good, but fans of the found footage genre might enjoy a few spooky moments here and there.For the most part, though, this is a missed opportunity. This film was especially interesting to me given that I was involved in my own BLAIR WITCH-style spoof back in the day and I had a lot of fun making it. Plus the locations are dear to my heart, and this was filmed just up the road from me. What a shame that for 90% of the running time the viewer is stuck with a quartet of detestable characters who alternate between boring and stupid. We're stuck with them as they argue, snort coke, and generally waste time until the next scare scene.There is good stuff here, involving creepy foxes and some wonderfully evoked rural locations - that tree and the ruins are atmospheric without the film-makers even trying - but it's lost in a welter of average acting and sheer mediocrity. When the horror hits, there's way too much deafening screaming and the scares feel oddly diluted. In retrospect, I'd stick with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.

I saw an ad for this movie on a horror site. Came to IMDb and saw that it had a 6.5 rating on here. Reviews say how amazing it is. I watched it. It was awful. I assumed I was just trolled by fake reviews. I was. If you look at the positive member reviews, click on the name of the person who posted it. This is the one and only movie those "members" ever reviewed. Didn't even attempt to cover their tracks by throwing in some other random reviews. Nope, just the one. The people behind this movie are trolls and their movie is awful. In fairness, it's my own fault for not doing making sure the reviews were legit. Lesson learned.

Four friends travel to Suffolk, England to see the house that Emma's grandfather lived in. At the center of this is a large, old tree that has a large hollow section, where evil supposedly resides; this tree scared Emma when she was a girl.End summary.At 1:55 into the film, we learn that all the protagonists die, and that we are going to have to suffer through footage from the hand-held camera found at the scene. At this point, I only watch this picture so as to complete this review. As a consumer, I would reject the movie and move on to another, better one.The policeman from East Anglia does some of his own camera work in describing the tableau after all the principals have been hung by the neck until dead. He shows a lot of this huge old tree, including the opening of a huge hollow (film title). The tree is devoid of foliage at this point.We skip back in time, and start at the beginning of the found footage.Emma, James, and Scott travel by car to a train station, where they pickup Lynn.While continuing to their destination, they kill a fox. They stop, and Emma sees the massive old tree and remembers her fear. Her mother had a particularly creepy story about it, which is told later. The tree is in leaf, and looks rather vigorous.The cottage had been in Emma's family for generations. While going through papers they find news clippings in her grandfather's belongings dating from 1650 to three days before he died. The common thread is suicide of couples by hanging from the tree.They talk to a local clergyman, who will not tell them anything. A local fisherman recounts two versions of the first suicide. Scott finds a book where an entire chapter is devoted to the tree and the suicides, notably 9 in a period of 18 months around 1983.The four have other issues. James and Emma have known each other the longest, but were not right for each other. James cannot quite accept that. Lynn definitely draws Scott's attention. Lynn has a child, Kyle, by James, but James and Lynn are not married. What could go wrong there?Doing recreational drugs seems like a mistake, in any case, but given all the suicide build up, this is a perfectly stupid move. After they work themselves up, they go out in public yelling and screaming. Brilliant. Then they go driving while under the influence. Doubly brilliant.Emma decides to go back to the cottage herself after Scott gets the car stuck off road. She needs her inhaler, but probably cannot get to it. She heads to the tree for some reason. James catches up with her inhaler, and gets her pointed back to the others.Scott challenges the tree in the dark. How dramatic. Scott and Lynn start making out in the blackness; James catches this. Emma defuses it, somewhat.The next day was to be the last day in the area: turn in the keys and leave. Things are broken here among the couples. The local clergy insists that avoiding the tree is the right thing to do, so the history of hangings won't be resolved. Going home, forgetting this place, seems like the clear decision.They don't do that. The last 20 minutes felt like 200; heavy breathing and screaming in blackness.-----Scores------Cinematography: 0/10 Found footage. This is better than most; fairly long segments of the first half of the film are in color. The second half is a different story.Sound: 4/10 As with many dreadful 'found film' projects, sound was recorded. The repetitive sound of the wind screen wipers, for instance, is of exactly zero interest to most viewers especially with the camera focused on uninteresting objects during travel in a car. Listening to James breathing as he walks around confused or scared did not heighten tension. Video footage of a fly on the inside of the car's wind screen was the topper: James' finger impacting the screen and the fly moving about in agitation. Wonderful use of the viewer's time. Some of the yelling overloaded the video camera's ability to record. The breathing in near darkness gets really annoying after a while.Acting: 2/10 Get a bigger budget and hire better actors next time.Screenplay: 0/10 At least 50 percent of the film is spent on couples fighting verbally. Perhaps 15 percent is recorded in blackness with barely useful sound. Another 10 percent is focused on auto ceilings, fidgety knees, or the ground. Who cares about any of these three categories? What does this have to do with horror? with thrillers? with mystery?