Review #77: The Hollow Child (2017)

This review was originally written in October 2019.

October Horror Movie Review #25: The Hollow Child

The Hollow Child is a movie about a troubled teen named Samantha living with a foster family on the edge of a haunted forest. When her foster sister Olivia goes missing as a result of her neglect, Samantha feels understandably guilty- but then Olivia turns up back at home a few days later, perfectly fine. Or... is she....?

I thought this was an interesting movie; it's covering ground that's already been explored by other movies and even classic folk tales, but for the most part I enjoyed this take on it. My only real issues come from the fact that I feel like there's a lot of tension added into this film by several (extremely minor) subplots that don't really serve any purpose except to make us feel like there's obstacles on every side. Which isn't a problem- in the absence of an actual secondary or tertiary conflict it can be helpful to create the illusion of one- but they seemed so paper-thin and unresolved that it just made them seem ill-placed.

The first problem that this movie throws into the mix is the foster family. The dad does nothing whatsoever to hide the fact that he hates Samantha and does not want her to be a part of the family; why, then, did their first scene involve the mom telling Samantha that they were looking into officially adopting her? It's not even just the stress of losing Olivia that exacerbates any doubts the dad might have- throughout the entire movie he's making it clear that he has no interest whatsoever in Samantha being a permanent part of their family.

The second is Samantha's love lives. I thought the movie was going somewhere interesting when her long-time best friend makes a move on her, but then that never comes up again. Same with her schoolmate- it's clear that he's trying to get with her the entire movie, but then that, too, goes absolutely nowhere. (There's even a moment where he gets mad at her for stringing him along, but then ten seconds later it's as if it never happened.) It really feels like the writers were trying to show how torn Samantha is about the relationships in her life, but then... they do nothing with it. Instead, everyone she might have had an important story arc with ends up being fodder for the killer with little fanfare.

And the ending really doesn't wrap any of this up; Samantha manages to rescue Olivia while her foster parents (I guess?) find out something supernatural was going on? But what about the fact that she was under investigation for starting a house fire that may have killed somebody? That never got resolved. A social worker was supposedly on the way to take Samantha away shortly before the climax, so did they get lost on the way or something? You can't set up a personal armageddon in Act 2 and then never mention it again. If these things got resolved, I need to see that. I can't just assume "everything worked out in the end" when you've set up how incredibly hard it was going to be to work everything out in the end!

I feel like maybe this movie was running about ten minutes too long and they HAD to cut SOMETHING, so they cut the entire resolution as well as some of the setups for a few of the secondary events (like the house fire and subsequent framing, which- unless I missed it completely- is just mentioned after-the-fact). That's the only explanation I can think of for why such important details were left out entirely.

Overall it was an enjoyable film, but I really feel like there's a LOT missing and probably a few vestigial remnants of plotlines that were dropped in the writer's room.

Overall Rating: 6/10

What I Ate During This Film: A delicious Detroit-style pizza from Rogala's, a bar near my house