The Hollow starts on the Eve of Halloween at the small American town of Sleepy Hollow where new resident Ian Cranston (Kevin Zegers) is driving along trying to impress a local bird named Karen (Kaley Cuoco) when he has to swerve to miss the local cemetery keeper Claus Van Ripper (Stacy Keach) who then tries to convince Ian that he is an actual descendant of Ichabod Crane (just watch Tim Burton's fantastic Sleepy Hollow (1999) to find out who he is) whom escaped the ghostly Headless Horseman many decades ago, so since Ian is technically a Crane the Headless Horseman decides he will take what he can get so he intends to kill Ian as some sort of revenge. Look, just don't ask. Annoyingly for the local population of Sleepy Hollow the Headless Horseman doesn't mind killing anyone who gets in his way, cue lots of American teenagers... yawn...
Directed by Kyle Newman who according to the IMDb credits casted himself as the 'Cool High School Dude' I personally thought The Hollow was rubbish, it's as simple & straight forward as that really. The script by co-producer Hans Rodionoff who also makes a cameo appearance in the finished film as a corpse 'borrows' heavily from Burton's wonderful Sleepy Hollow which The Hollow is inferior to in every single aspect. The first thing to say is that while Burton's film was a brilliant Gothic period who dun-nit murder mystery & by comparison The Hollow is a cheap, tacky, predictable contemporary teen slasher riddled with clichés, bad character's, poor dialogue & unconvincing CGI effects. The decision to move the ahem, 'action' to modern America & populate the cast with annoying teen stereotypes says it all really, this is lazy & uninspired film-making. Add to that the fact that the first 50 odd minutes are really slow, boring & dull which they most certainly are. Apart from the basic legend of the Headless Horseman which is quite a cool concept, a nice looking cast & one or two half decent scenes The Hollow has very little going for it.
Director Newman does nothing to impress, it's competent but little else. What's up with Stacy Keach's character anyway? He seems to know absolutely everything, when the Headless Horseman appears, what his weaknesses are, that Ian is a distant relation to Crane & just about everything else. There's not much gore & what there is totally revolves around decapitated heads & headless bodies. They couldn't afford the CGI effects to make the Headless Horseman headless so they stick a pumpkin on his stump to hide the actors head which looks about twice as large as a normal head, personally I feel cheated I mean this film is supposed to be all about a ghostly Headless Horseman & there technically isn't one. In fact I think they should have renamed him to the Pumpkinhead Horseman, well it has ring to it doesn't it & it would have been a more accurate description.
With a supposed of about $900,000 which I accept isn't much The Hollow is reasonably well made but you'll have probably forgotten it within a day. Quite how (once) respected actors like Keach & Judge Reinhold end up in bottom of the barrel crap like this is anyone's guess, the teenage cast are mostly annoying although some of the birds in this are good looking especially Erica played by Shelly Bennett who gets her head chopped off.
The Hollow is a pointless film really, Tim Burton has already made the perfect Headless Horseman film with Sleepy Hollow & what's left is just your less-than-average teen slasher film that fails to entertain or impress. Not one to rush out to see...
Directed by Kyle Newman who according to the IMDb credits casted himself as the 'Cool High School Dude' I personally thought The Hollow was rubbish, it's as simple & straight forward as that really. The script by co-producer Hans Rodionoff who also makes a cameo appearance in the finished film as a corpse 'borrows' heavily from Burton's wonderful Sleepy Hollow which The Hollow is inferior to in every single aspect. The first thing to say is that while Burton's film was a brilliant Gothic period who dun-nit murder mystery & by comparison The Hollow is a cheap, tacky, predictable contemporary teen slasher riddled with clichés, bad character's, poor dialogue & unconvincing CGI effects. The decision to move the ahem, 'action' to modern America & populate the cast with annoying teen stereotypes says it all really, this is lazy & uninspired film-making. Add to that the fact that the first 50 odd minutes are really slow, boring & dull which they most certainly are. Apart from the basic legend of the Headless Horseman which is quite a cool concept, a nice looking cast & one or two half decent scenes The Hollow has very little going for it.
Director Newman does nothing to impress, it's competent but little else. What's up with Stacy Keach's character anyway? He seems to know absolutely everything, when the Headless Horseman appears, what his weaknesses are, that Ian is a distant relation to Crane & just about everything else. There's not much gore & what there is totally revolves around decapitated heads & headless bodies. They couldn't afford the CGI effects to make the Headless Horseman headless so they stick a pumpkin on his stump to hide the actors head which looks about twice as large as a normal head, personally I feel cheated I mean this film is supposed to be all about a ghostly Headless Horseman & there technically isn't one. In fact I think they should have renamed him to the Pumpkinhead Horseman, well it has ring to it doesn't it & it would have been a more accurate description.
With a supposed of about $900,000 which I accept isn't much The Hollow is reasonably well made but you'll have probably forgotten it within a day. Quite how (once) respected actors like Keach & Judge Reinhold end up in bottom of the barrel crap like this is anyone's guess, the teenage cast are mostly annoying although some of the birds in this are good looking especially Erica played by Shelly Bennett who gets her head chopped off.
The Hollow is a pointless film really, Tim Burton has already made the perfect Headless Horseman film with Sleepy Hollow & what's left is just your less-than-average teen slasher film that fails to entertain or impress. Not one to rush out to see...