When the opening production credits have four production companies, one co-production company, and one "in association with" listed, I begin to question the credibility of the film I'm about to watch. In this case though, it seems that this meeting of the Euros worked out in this movie's favor.
The Hallow is an Irish film that brought together a bit of science with a lot of folklore and made it work well. We have our typical family of Adam, Clare, baby Finn, and a dog which I could never understand what Adam was calling it. Iggy? Digby? Biggy? (credit spoilers: it's Iggy... which wasn't even the dog's real name so that explains why it didn't listen to him, ever.) Adam is surveying a patch of forest for a lumber company when he comes across some strange mold on a dead horse in an abandoned house. That is about as dumb as that sentence sounds.
The neighbor man keeps coming around saying he and Adam need to talk and that the forest belongs to the Hallow. His daughter was apparently taken by them. This is pretty much the set-up for this film. They bring in classic folk practices like using iron to keep evil/spirits away, there's the introduction of kidnapping a baby and replacing them with a changeling, and they even go as far as to add a vampire-based element with light, especially sunlight, harming the creatures or those infected.
As with any film I enjoyed I'm not going to spoil it on here. I will say that a good part of this film felt a bit middle-of-the-road for a while but the last section really turned it around for me. There's a flaming scythe, some good CGI and practical make-up/effects, a rad beheading, and a section of stop-motion that looks like it should be from a Tool video from the mid-90's.
I give The Hallow a solid 3.5 copies of Irish folk tales out of 5:
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