My quick rating - 5.6/10. Hallow Road creeps in quietly, building tension through silence and suggestion rather than spectacle. Director Babak Anvari, known for turning everyday dread into existential unease, takes a minimalist approach here, delivering what feels like a cross between a psychological thriller, an audio play, and a parental nightmare.
The setup is deceptively simple: in the dead of night, a married couple—Frank (Matthew Rhys) and Maddie (Rosamund Pike)—are jolted awake by a desperate phone call from their teenage daughter, Alice (voiced by Megan McDonnell). She’s taken her dad’s car without permission, crashed it on a desolate woodland road, and hit someone, or something, on the way. With no visuals of Alice and only her trembling voice to guide them, the film follows her parents as they drive the forty-odd miles to find her, the entire journey unfolding in real time.
That’s both the film’s greatest strength and its biggest gamble. It’s a bold concept: essentially a two-person chamber piece on wheels, where every passing mile ramps up the psychological tension between the couple as much as it does the suspense about what awaits them at the crash site. Rhys and Pike carry the film effortlessly; their brittle chemistry and simmering resentment give the trip a claustrophobic emotional charge. They’re believable as two people long past affection but still bound by shared panic over their child. Without them, this whole experiment would stall in the first ten minutes.
What keeps Hallow Road compelling is its suggestive horror—the kind that crawls under your skin, not through jump scares or monsters, but through what isn’t shown. The fear is entirely situational and psychological, the kind of horror any parent could imagine: helplessness, guilt, and the gnawing uncertainty of whether your child is safe, or sane. The real-time pacing adds authenticity but also tests patience. Some viewers will find the method hypnotic; others may just find it slow. And honestly, a bit of both reactions is valid.
Where the film falters is in its lack of urgency. For parents racing to their child’s potential disaster, Frank and Maddie are oddly composed, almost too composed. There are stretches where their conversation feels like a Sunday drive rather than a frantic rescue. It undercuts the realism, even if Anvari’s deliberate tempo is meant to keep tension simmering rather than boiling.
Still, the movie lingers. Like his earlier work Wounds, Anvari again leaves audiences with an ambiguous ending, one that invites multiple interpretations rather than delivering a cathartic conclusion. It’s more satisfying this time around, though still a touch frustrating if you prefer firm answers.
Ultimately, Hallow Road is an unnerving, well-acted experiment in slow-burn suspense. Its realism and emotional depth keep it entertaining, even when the pacing drifts. It’s a film that unsettles through what it implies, not what it shows. While that may not thrill everyone, it’s undeniably powerful in its quietest moments.
https://jackmeat.com/hallow-road-2025/
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