Hollow is a horror film from Vietnam. That alone makes it more interesting than the average horror film that we get. By sheer merit of where the film is from, Hollow is able to present new ways of thinking about the elements of Asian horror. And thankfully, it also happens to be pretty good. Though the film kind of loses its thread in its final moments, it's largely able to tell an emotional story that builds off an enticing combination of Vietnamese lore and real world anxieties. It’s far from perfect, but the cultural specificity gives it appeal beyond the standard narrative and the familiar tropes of the genre.
Six-year-old Ai (Lam Thanh My) falls into a river while her family is visiting a temple for a ceremony. Her teenage stepsister Chi (Nguyen Hong An), who is dealing with some deep personal problems, was supposed to be watching her. Ai miraculously turns up alive a week later in a hospital upstream from where she fell. Her family is relieved to have her back, and doesn't ask too many questions. But Ai begins behaving strangely, and it becomes the evident that the young girl isn't exactly what she seems.
The movie doesn't waste a lot of time with the characters not knowing what to do. It establishes early on that this is a culture that believes in the supernatural. Once things start getting weird, the characters go about trying to solve it by turning to a shaman for help. The movie then shifts focus to understanding the real life underpinnings of this developing tragedy, looking into the horror that human beings are capable of even when ghosts aren't around.
The movie probably employs one too many twists, the timeline not exactly working out in the end. But there is some solid emotional work in this story. Even before the film lays out its big horrible developments, it's already working within a tricky realm that explores a family's toxic dynamics, with a teenage girl on the verge of a humongous choice finding little support from the people who are supposed to care for her most. The film doesn't get to resolve it all properly, but the stuff that's there capitalizes on the terror inherent in coming of age, in having to make adult decisions while still technically a child.
Smart filmmaking helps much of this work. The movie isn't scary in the way that most people might expect from an Asian horror film. It is more disturbing than scary, its scenes designed to build off psychological terrors that spring from real life anxieties. It isn't the ghost that's most terrifying in the film, but the world that allows such terrible things to happen. Its few forays in the use of visual effects don’t really pay off. Performances are solid all around. Nguyen Hong An fulfills all the requirements of your Asian horror lead, conveying deep anxiety for most of the film, but displaying fierce determination when it counts.
Hollow gets pretty messy in the end as the film tries to tie up its various loose ends. It falls a little short of really hitting the emotional crescendo that it needs as it lurches towards a more physical type of confrontation. Despite that, the film ends up being able to tell a pretty powerful story that benefits from cultural specificity. This feels like a horror film that could have only come from Vietnam, its story built on the country's lore and its particular brand of darkness.
My Rating:
