Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Babak Anvari
Written by William Gillies
How far will you go to protect your children from poor decision-making? Hallow Road hits the streets as a one-room black box stage thriller set in an automobile. Two parents race to the scene of an accident involving their daughter, as panic sets in and additional levels of tragedy are revealed. This movie will put you through the emotional wringer and has some cryptic plot twists hiding in the shadows.
Babak Anvari, the director of the modern classic Under the Shadow, with the tightly wound drama, Hallow Road. This is road trip horror, where the dread unspools almost entirely through dialogue. Parenting regrets, the folly of youth, and owning mistakes are the drivers of this story, and there are moments where the audience absorbs the psychological pain of all the parties.
Films like this are sometimes described as two-handers. Two characters occupy the entirety of the film, but in truth, a third character exists almost entirely as a voice on the cell phone. Additionally, the characters are seated for most of the film, with the night scenery drifting past through the car window. Given all these restraints, Anvari makes this movie dynamic through clever devices like stop lights and reflected images projecting from the dashboard onto our characters.
Let’s meet the principals:
The Cast of Hallow Road
- Rosamund Pike plays Maddy, an EMT whose daughter Alice has called late at night after a traumatic car accident. She and Alice had recently had a heated argument.
- Matthew Rhys plays Frank, Maddy’s husband and Alice’s dad. Frank wants to shield Alice from catastrophic consequences and will do anything he can to protect her.
- Meagan McDonnell provides the voice for Alice, a distraught young woman who calls her parents in a panic to get her out of a tragic incident.
A Short Synopsis
The story begins with a still life. The camera drifts over the remains of a half-eaten dinner and the evidence of an argument, broken glass littering the floor. Maddie is aroused from her sleep late at night by a failing fire alarm beeping intermittently in a harbinger of what is to come. She receives a call from Alice, and Maddy learns that Alice has struck a girl, no older than she is, on remote Hallow Road in the forest. A worried Frank is engaged, and the parents enter Maddy’s SUV to rescue Alice.
Maddy’s paramedic instincts kick in. She instructs Alice to contact an ambulance and then coaches her daughter through CPR. A category I event should draw the ambulance to the site within 15 minutes, far sooner than they can reach the scene. As Alice’s attempts fail to resuscitate the probably dead pedestrian, she begins to panic. This is where the parenting diverges. Maddy wants Alice to continue trying CPR on the body until the ambulance arrives, but Frank fears that Alice will go to jail for what happened and concocts an alternative plan.
The ethics of what is the proper legal thing to do collides directly with the fate of their child. It is a dilemma that no parents want to face. Accountability rears its prominent head. As the parents race towards the accident, complicating details and secrets are revealed. And none of the characters are ready for an intervention that will seal their fate.
Evaluation
This compact film condenses considerable tension just through dialogue. The plausibility and the emotional pressure mount with every passing minute. The internal debate between Frank and Maddy and the uncontrollable grief from Alice permeate the bulk of the film. What would you do? As always, the adage “the coverup is worse than the crime” is in play. Also, bad decisions tend to compound themselves and Alice has layered bad decisions like pancakes.
For a film that spends at least an hour of its 90-minute run time in the front seat of the SUV, the movie is quite dynamic. The editing flow and cutting is masterfully done. A constant check back to the Geo Positioning monitor, the speedometer, and the time to destination provides the necessary barometer, and the movie continuously ramps up the pressure until you almost don’t want to see what is at the destination.
This is a gore-free movie, and all the violence has already happened. Still, this movie’s emotional toll on the characters and the audience is palpable—full credit to writer Gillies for engaging the audience early and keeping us engaged the entire time. The story holds onto a fragile thread of hope, even if the situation feels like a lose-lose-lose proposition. As you might imagine, this is a heavy movie with little to no comic relief. The film asks you to carry the burden along with Maddy and Frank for the whole ride.
Concluding Thoughts:
This is a simple movie executed with expert skill. The performances are all top shelf. You need to be prepared for a tense, emotional ride (literally) and revel in the dialogue. Even though you don’t see Megan McDowell, except for some still family photos, she wrings out a draining and harrowing vocal performance. Some of the revelations she delivers left the audience groaning in dismay. It is seriously powerhouse stuff.
If you are looking for Rock-em-Sock-em Robots, or frankly, an enjoyable romp, look elsewhere. But if compelling psychological thrillers are your bag, then hop in the back seat and allow yourself to listen in. As of now, this movie does not have a distributor (no wide release date yet) or an MPAA rating. It could garner an R-rating for language, and Hallow Road will prove traumatizing for younger viewers. The verisimilitude is real.
Hallow Road was screened as part of the Overlook Film Festival 2025, and debuted at SXSW.
Review By Eric Li
