Two otherwise unrelated children, a boy in Spain (Izan Corchero) and a girl in England (Ella Purnell, whose character is seriously named Mia Farrow!) claim to be haunted by a malevolent ghostly entity known as Hollowface, who is, like the name suggests, in need of a face and is trying to steal that of the children. The boy’s mother (Pilar Lopez de Ayala) attempts to help her boy by enlisting the aid of a priest (Daniel Brühl), who feels ill-equipped to help her. Mia’s dad Clive Owen, meanwhile, tries to convince his daughter that nothing sinister is invading her bedroom. But then he too starts to see this nightmarish entity, and must contend not only with it, but an unhelpful wife (Carice van Houten, in a shrewish performance) who thinks they are both crazy.
Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (“28 Weeks Later”) and scripted by Nicolás Casariego and Jaime Marques, this supernatural horror-drama is seriously underrated. The opening portion in particular is memorably creepy and rain-soaked, whilst Clive Owen makes for an empathetic father figure. Although the film’s cinematographer, Enrique Chediak (“Turistas”, “127 Hours”) indulges in a bit too much shaky-cam during attack sequences, he has a fine handle on shadows, light, and darkness- keys in making an effective supernatural film in my view. He knows what to light, what to keep dark, and when. He also adopts an effective roving camera style at other points- it’s a wonderfully atmospheric and creepy film. The scenery is incredibly beautiful at times, too, in the exterior scenes.
Some will find the film a bit too slow, but I was intrigued to see where this was all heading. I do think it should’ve been called “Hollowface” instead, however. It’s quite an unsettling film, and reminded me a bit of “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark”, and is the film “Boogeyman” should have been but wasn’t. So far as horror films with child protagonists go, this is a really, really good one. I’d advise against letting kids watch it, though, unless you want to mess them up for life. I’m not even kidding.
I eventually thought I knew where the film was headed, but wasn’t entirely correct. Others may guess it earlier, but not me. Forget J-horror nonsense, this right here is how you do a ghost film. Very imaginative production design at times, too. This one really surprised and impressed me, it’s definitely the best horror film of 2011 (unless you count “The Skin I Live In” as a horror film). Check it out if you haven’t already.
OVERALL SUMMARY
This is classic horror stuff, and although it won’t be for everyone, it’s one of the more frightening horror films I’ve seen of late and was right up my alley. Ella Purnell is especially good as Owen’s daughter.
