It’s not often that you come across a film that has the quality of a direct to video horror film from the nineties, but reminds you so much of certain films such as Children of the Corn and The Wicker Man. Yes! Hallowed Ground is a film that takes it premise from the likes of those classic cult driven films and even gives us a bit of a Fallen feel to it. while the film is no where near as good as the one’s mentioned; it is not a movie in which one will just give up on it as being just another bad film. The film has some very entertaining scenes and has a decent story that’s easy to follow.
Hallowed Ground is about a young women named Liz Chambers (Jamie Alexander) who is just driving though the rural country side when her car breaks down in a small town. When she is told that her car can’t be fixed right away, she decides to spend the night, however the locals don’t seem to be a friendly bunch except for a reporter named Sarah (Hudson Leick) whom herself is not a local but is there to investigate a local legend of a cult leader who used to sacrifice anyone who came into town unrepentantly to please his gods. Liz agrees to join Sarah in her investigative reporting however what they find will be more what they bargain for, as the preacher is not dead, but has merely been jumping from body to body and has been looking for the right women to be his mother so he can be reborn. Now Liz must fight for her life and avoid the evil preacher and his cult.
The plot and script are actually very good, the plot moves very quickly and the story is very easy to follow. In terms of character development writer/director David Benullo did a great job in developing his main character but sacrificed the development of the supporting characters to give more focus to not only our leads but the story as well. There are times where the script does get a bit confusing especially with the preachers soul jumping from body to body, but it’s easily explained in a certain scene that gives us a sense of what’s going on. It’s not one of those stories where you can walk away from your television set and expect to come back knowing what’s going on.
The acting in the film is alright. Jamie Alexander gives a very strong performance in the lead role as Liz Chambers. Jamie in her past two horror films has been pretty good, so I expected her to give it her all in this film, and she delivered. Some of the supporting roles where very good especially that of Hudson Leick in the short role she had and Brian McNamara was very good as the Sheriff. We also are treated to a familiar television face; Ethan Phillips of Star Trek fame as the local town preacher. I was kind of disappointed with one supporting role however, and although she is a young actress there was one scene that just didn’t work for me. While her role was small young actress Chloe Moretz who has experience in horror films such as The Amityville Horror remake and Wicked Little Things could not pull of a scene in which she was supposed to break down and cry. Why she acted well with the crying I didn’t see any tears at all leave her eyes. Sure the acting was decent, but maybe so CGI tears or some eye drops would made the scene look more believable as a helpless young girl who’s father is about to die. Not to just pick on the young actress but there were some supporting roles in this films; especially that of some of the towns folks that took away the real overall feel of the film.
The production value for the film was just alright as well. While the on location sets and costume design was pretty good; the visual effects looked very a lot like that Lord of the Rings cartoon film that came out in 1978. In the first scene there is a shot that rises up from a body on a cross and fly’s across the top of the field revealing a slew of very poor looking CGI bodies attached to crosses. There are also very poor looking crows that fly around and attack people in the film as well. The make-up effects are not half bad however and we do get some pretty cool looking death scenes.
Overall, Hallowed Ground is a film that probably would of been better if the film had more of a budget. There was a lot of things in the film that could of been a lot better if there was more money behind the script or different methods were used to make some of the scenes work better. The script for the film was good and the acting was alright, but the films production value could of used a lot of help especially with the visual effects. It’s not a bad story; and can be compared to the likes of Dead & Buried and Children of the Corn, but while the story was good the film lacked in key areas. It’s a movie that I think is better than most of the direct to video films out there on store shelves. But it’s a film that with have mixed reactions from horror fans.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
