Today on TV: Scary monster horror with a very nasty creature and two “Game Of Thrones” stars

For the author of these lines, the sparsely populated, wonderfully green west of Ireland is one of the most beautiful places on earth. This is where the dark story of “The Hallow,” the debut feature from “The Nun” director Corin Hardy, takes place. As described in the three-star FILMSTARTS review by author Lars-Christian Daniels, this film is certainly not inferior in originality. However, he convinces in his visual execution and in the way he tells his horror story in an entertaining way. Plus, there’s a pretty terrifying monster on display.

“The Hallow” airs today, October 27, 2023 at midnight on MDR. The channel will broadcast a repeat on the night of October 28 to 29 at 12:30 PM. If these dates are too late for you, you can invest in the Blu-ray, DVD or a paid video on demand of the FSK 16 title:

Joseph Mawle and Bojana Novakovic await you in the leading roles, as a couple in search of peace and pure terror. While you may have seen the Serbian-born Australian in genre works like ‘Drag Me To Hell’ and ‘Devil’, Mawle is best known for his appearances in major fantasy series. He played the villain Adar in the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The Brit previously appeared as Benjen Stark in seasons 1, 6 and 7 of ‘Game Of Thrones’.

Also starring in other important roles are: Michael Smiley from the successful crime series ‘Luther’, Stuart Graham (‘The Wheel of Time’) and the Irishman Michael McElhatton, who also became popular thanks to ‘Game Of Thrones’. He played Roose Bolton’s character, Lord von Grauenstein, for a total of 19 episodes.

“The Hallow” on MDR: that’s the story

Biologist Adam Hitchens (Mawle) has finally won a long-awaited research assignment. To do this, he now moves with Clare (Novakovic) and their son from London to a house in the deepest hinterland of Ireland. While Adam surveys the trees in the area, his wife is busy making the Hitchens’ new home as comfortable as possible.

At first the three enjoy the lonely idyll. However, this quickly turns out to be deceptive. Shortly after their arrival, their very strange neighbor Colm (McElhatton) visits them and warns them – in their opinion – about vengeful forest spirits. The Hitchens simply ignore Colm’s words. They do not want their new life in the harsh but beautiful landscape to be ruined by local superstition.

But then the strange happenings in and around the house come to a head. Adam and Clare soon realize that someone (or something?) seems intent on killing their little Finn. It’s too late now to escape back to England. So they have no choice but to face the danger…

Many influences for “The Hallow”

Corin Hardy, currently working as director and showrunner of the WOW/Sky hit series ‘Gangs Of London’, cited a number of well-known films as sources of inspiration in interviews about ‘The Hallow’. So he sold the work to the studio as a mix of Sam Peckinpah’s brutal psychological thriller “Who Sows Violence” and Guillermo del Toro’s modern fantasy classic “Pan’s Labyrinth.” In his production he then took elements and characteristics of genre monuments such as ‘Alien’, ‘Dance of the Devils’, ‘The Fly’ and ‘The Thing from Another World’ as models.

One of the best aspects of The Hallow is the special effects, which turned out to be surprisingly effective for a work with a relatively low budget. Hardy insisted on adding practical effects to as many scenes as possible, as he rarely finds pure CGI monsters truly terrifying.

Speaking of monsters: the quite disgusting and above all very annoying creature that you can experience here is inspired by Irish folktales and Celtic mythologies. Hardy describes himself as a big fan of classic vampire, werewolf and zombie horror films, but believes that there is now enough work to be done. In his first feature film, he preferred to present a less exhausted character as the antagonist.

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