Cast: Rosamund Pike, Matthew Rhys, Megan McDonnell, Tadhg Murphy, Stephen Jones, Paul Tylak
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Director: Babak Anvari
In Irish Cinemas: 16th May 2025
Campfire stories have endured because they tap into something primal—those small, lingering fears that smoulder beneath the surface of our daily lives. In the hush of the night and the flicker of flame, they catch hold, building suspense with deliberate rhythm: a careful setup, rising tension, and sudden, chilling release. They cling to you even after the fire dies out. Babak Anvari’s Hollow Road doesn’t unspool its tale by firelight but instead by dashboard glow, transforming a drive through a dark forest into a claustrophobic, anxiety-laden descent into dread. It doesn’t take long to spark the panic, and once lit, it blazes forward, fanned by the unrelenting fears that haunt every parent.
The film thrives on its immediacy and intimacy, playing out almost entirely from within a car as two parents—played with intensity and nuance by Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys—receive a life-altering phone call: their daughter has struck a girl with her car in the middle of a desolate, pitch-black forest. From that moment, Hollow Road never looks away. Much like Locke, but filtered through the eerie sensibilities of Stephen King, it’s a contained psychological thriller where the terror doesn’t come from jump scares, but from helplessness, moral ambiguity, and the slow unravelling of a family dynamic under immense pressure.
Pike’s character, a paramedic by profession and a mother by instinct, is at the story’s emotional core. Her performance walks a tightrope between professional control and maternal panic as she tries to keep both her daughter and the accident victim alive, talking her child through CPR over the phone, while speeding through the night. Rhys, in contrast, offers a more measured, emotionally supportive role. Together, they form a kind of improvised parental duet—an echo of their complicated dynamic in The Americans, where domestic conflicts constantly bled into high-stakes decisions. Their differing styles of support reflect deeper fault lines in the family, and as the night grows longer and darker, those cracks widen into emotional chasms.
The film cleverly uses its limited space and real-time storytelling to explore themes of responsibility, guilt, and the illusion of control. The tension isn’t just in the forest or the shadowy shapes beyond the headlights; it’s in the silences, the whispered arguments, and the constant dread that no amount of parenting, no matter how careful or well-intentioned, can prepare a child for life’s cruellest moments. Is the instinct to protect always noble, or does it risk shielding a child from consequences they must face?
It’s taut and compelling when Hallow Road leans into these psychological and thematic threads. Occasionally, though, it veers into more fantastical terrain, where Anvari’s signature blending of fairy tale logic with real-world horror creeps in. At times, this ethereal layer threatens to pull the film off course, as seen in some of his previous work, like Wounds, though it’s more measured here. The balance achieved in Under the Shadow, his most acclaimed film, remains a benchmark, and Hallow Road comes closer to recapturing that equilibrium than any of his subsequent efforts.
What ultimately gives the film its staying power, though, is its restraint. Anvari relies heavily on the performances of Pike and Rhys, letting the camera linger in tight, claustrophobic angles that rarely leave the car. This containment becomes a crucible, allowing the actors to heat and pressurise the narrative until it reaches a breaking point. A few well-deployed visual jolts punctuate the stillness, but they land precisely because the film has earned them through slow-burning tension rather than spectacle.
Ultimately, Hollow Road may not permanently etch itself into your psyche like the best ghost stories do. But in the moment—in the thick of its winding, nightmarish journey—it grips you tightly. It’s a haunting drive through the kind of darkness we all fear: the one filled with unanswered calls, blinking batteries, and the realisation that sometimes, even the people you love the most can’t help you navigate what’s ahead.
Overall: 7/10
Movie Reviewer
