Le Sanctuaire

The last couple of minutes ruined a little what would have otherwise been a perfect impression. The effects and make-up look lower quality than up to that point (and therefore the monster no longer looks as scary) and that “dawn” looks almost kitsch. Otherwise, The Hallow is excellent for any fan of supernatural monster horror, and one of the best films of this kind in the 21st century. It’s executed without hesitation, the creators try to scare, not with gore but through the atmosphere of a dark forest at night and an abandoned building. The perfect design of the monster, where no expense was spared, takes things really high up. The leading characters are likeable and well portrayed (which doesn’t fully apply to some of the secondary characters, but they only appear for a moment always). With The Hallow, Corin Hardy has not discovered America, but he delivers a convincingly executed, entertaining, tense and really atmospheric film; I enjoyed every minute of it and I’m sure I haven’t watched it for the last time. In addition to the aforementioned, I have another minor quibble: given that the horror action doesn’t get going until about the half hour mark, and doesn’t let up until basically the end, the ending could have been a little more intense, so it would feel more like a true “finale”, instead of only the “end of an hour long ride with a monster”. This autumn keeps on improving the statistics of horror movie quality, and by December the TOP 10 will be full. (06/11/2015)

The co-production The Hallow is an atmospheric yet explicit film, a film where horror is presented in both psychological and visual forms. And it works for me. The atmosphere is complemented by a very gritty execution, which eventually builds up into a very unpleasant, in parts even symbolic ending, which has an almost childishly horror finish in the credits. (24/07/2018)