Dead Woman’s Hollow

There are many elements that don’t work about Dead Woman’s Hollow. We will cover them in due time. But the one I’m really left thinking about, despite being a fairly small thing is the film’s colouring. It’s not like I wanted or expected this wilderness horror/thriller to be a high contrast, technicolor experience. But my god, this movie is so grey. And it turns out, even in a movie with tragic and dark content, you can go too far in this direction. This movie was genuinely too grey to be effectively scary. That’s a new one for me.

Dead Woman’s Hollow is apparently based in the true crime case of the murder of Rebecca Wight. So that’s fun. The film takes an unusual approach to the telling of these events. Not only is the film non-linear, but it almost avoids the majority of the violence. There’s many more scenes of either setup of the two leads, Jen and Donna being frankly, unlikable or the police investigation of the events after the fact. The murder itself and subsequently, a lot of the horror of the film are pretty minimized in place of an unsatisfactory investigation with flashbacks-type story.

The scenes focusing on Jen and Donna are perpetually frustrating. Mostly because of Donna. Donna is immediately just an unpleasant woman. Which doesn’t mean I think she deserves what happens to her or anything. But it’s not enjoyable to spend time with her. She and Jen are there to do a photo shoot in the autumn woods about domestic abuse which involves Jen getting fully naked. You know, normal stuff. When the creepy mountain man shows up, Donna consistently ignores Jen’s worries and a lot of more general red flags. Instead, she often chooses to antagonize the man. Again, this doesn’t justify the response. But it’s frustrating to see Donna’s seeming complete lack of normal anxiety or acknowledgement of her girlfriend’s unease. Nah, smoke weed and just eat your girlfriend out on the autumn forest floor on top of all those cold, dead, crunchy leaves.

Some of the police investigation stuff is halfway interesting. But it suffers from the same problem the whole of this movie does. Every scene goes on too long. There are moments of genuine intrigue in Dead Woman’s Hollow. But then a scene would just keep going and the intrigue would wear off. This is a surprisingly dialogue-heavy movie. And often, the performances aren’t up to that dialogue. And sometimes, it’s just that the dialogue itself isn’t very good.

The standout of the film is the homophobic mountain man played by Boodle Montgomery. This character has a great look. His immediate presence constitutes a threat. The scenes with Montgomery are the most interesting. Jen and especially, Donna are obnoxious as usual. But this mountain man? He is genuinely intriguing. Like the shark in Jaws, he’s not in it much. But his scenes are the standouts. I honestly think they probably should have used him more. Somehow, this character ends up being the most developed. There’s some backstory and potential motivation for his actions which is worthy of further exploration. It’s a shame the film didn’t go down this route as it would have been at least scarier if they did.

Dead Woman’s Hollow plays closer to a crap episode of Criminal Minds than it does a horror movie. Right down to the vaguely based on true events concept. The actual scares are pretty minimal. Some of this is due to the film’s investigation-focused story structure. The rest is due to the film’s poor pacing and ultimately, pretty tame nature. Plus again, this film is deeply bland to look at. It’s not just the lack of colour, but the surprisingly lack of contrast. It looks like the film’s been run through an instagram filter made for edgy teens taking photographs at the graveyard. The visuals don’t enhance the story and the story itself leaves a lot to be desired.

Overall rating: 3/10

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