Anyhow, after the prelude (where our preacher is burned at the stake) makes you fear for the next 90 minutes of your life due to some exceptionally poor CGI, we flash forward 100 years and are brought into the small town of Hope (state un-named). Our heroine Liz's car has just started to break down on the highway, and she pulls into Hope to get it fixed. The scary gas station attendant proves to be quite polite, but informs her he will not be able to get the part for the fix until the next day. She'll need to stay in town for the night. So now we've got all the fixings for your typical "hero stranded in a town full of crazies" tale. She heads to the local diner, and ignoring the creepy vibes and leering locals, orders a meal. While there, she meets Sarah Austin (Hudson Leick), a reporter for a "National Enquirer"-esque tabloid who is there to do a story on the violent local history. (She may as well just be named Mrs. Exposition, because everything we learn about the city we learn from her.) Sarah talks Liz into coming with her to check out the epicenter of the town's violence, an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. They hop in Sarah's car, and for a minute, it seems like we're going to get some kind of buddy picture.
It comes to light that everyone is excited about Liz coming to town because she is fulfilling a prophecy that the crazy preacher told would come to pass before he was burned at the stake. The prophecy (as I understand it) being - a young, female stranger will come to town alone one day, and will need to be impregnated by the current preacher that night. The child of that union will have the soul of the old crazy preacher. One part I can't imagine is in the prophecy (but is definitely in the movie): once the stranger comes to town, the spirit of the the old crazy preacher will be able to hop around in other bodies and such, but only for the night. This offer is void once the sun rises the next day.
vvvvi99999999999999uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuilp:
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| I don't have any shots from Hallowed Ground. So here's a picture of my cat that likes to sit on laptop keyboards |
Unfortunately, reporter Sarah is swiftly killed after throwing together a makeshift scarecrow that her "bosses thought would look scary." Good thing her shady bosses wanting her to fabricate evidence for a tabloid story was a part of the prophecy too, as it provides the first vessel for our evil spirit. Sadly, I don't recall how Sarah bites it - this horror movie every day business is starting to take it's toll on my brain! I'm trying to catch up (I'm typing this on the 19th, and watched this on the 14th) and write up movies sooner, so I don't forget important details like this... Anyways, if it's consistent with the rest of the movie, Sarah's death is a little bloody but nothing special.
I was really digging the vibe between her and Liz though. It's a relationship not often explored in horror films - the young-ish woman (early-20's) and an older woman (but not old enough to be her mother - early/mid-30's). I thought there was an interesting dynamic between the two and was legitimately bummed when Sarah was killed off. It seemed kind of fast - maybe about 20 minutes in? I think you either have to have the shit hit the fas ASAP (like in the first 5 minutes) or let things breathe and let us get to know/care about the characters a little bit. This was sort of an awkward in between.
The whole town is in on the conspiracy to trap/impregnate Liz, except for the sheriff who is an out of towner. Will Liz be able to escape from the crazies? Will she be able to rescue a 10-year-old Chloe Grace Moretz who is there for some reason? Will the rules of the prophecy be bent to fit the needs of the story? Tune in to find out!
What I didn't like
Some of the CGI is super shoddy - distractingly so. Some of the up close effects weren't too bad, but for some reason writer-director David Benullo wanted to get sweeping shots of the Hope landscape like it was The Lord of the Rings. I get the desire for epic shots, but you need to know if you have the resources to do it well. If you can't make it halfway decent, you are going to lose far more than you can possibly gain.
There just isn't a lot of attention to detail here either. Day just turns to night (and vice versa) at the drop of a hat, and "the rules" seem to change from scene to scene. For instance, when the preacher soul finds out that Liz is impure (i.e. not a virgin), they decide that they can just track down Chloe Moretz Grace and hop into her body instead. Why not just hop in there to begin with and drop the whole "impregnate a stranger" pretense? And some of it is just stupid. Our preacher soul is powerful enough that he can control the corn (to tie people up), but can't climb out of a hole. Just control the corn to bring you out!
What I liked
I'm always up for some good old religion-bashing, and Hallowed Ground does well in that regard. The whole town of Hope has been brainwashed into wanting to kill in the name of the Lord. Topical! Also, the preacher who tries to rape Liz has a comically large cross around his neck and talks like the a stereotypical holy man (calling everyone "my child," really cheesily).
The ending is actually pretty awesome. *SPOILER* A whole shit-load of crows (apparently the damned souls of Hope) come and swarm the whole town. It's really a quite good bird attack - really maybe the best I've ever seen? If Birdemic ever gets a grim-and-gritty remake, track down the people behind Hallowed Ground. Even though the rest of the movie's CGI is dodgy, in the end scene here it is really pretty good.
It provides a good counterpoint to Dark Souls, one I watched a couple of days ago. That was a strong movie with a bad ending, which made it hard to recommend. I'm not going to go around saying Hallowed Ground is some kind of hidden gem, but despite some slowish BS for the first two-thirds of the movie, it's strong ending and more interesting than usual characters make Hollowed Ground mostly okay.
I would pretty much recommend this film.
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