Hallow Road (2025)

High Tension, Low Battery - Hallow Road review by griggs

Hallow Road is a tidy little thriller built on a long-shelved Black List script that mostly delivers. Nearly the entire film unfolds inside a car, with Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys acting through phone calls while cycling through various shades of panic. Rhys has less to do, but both leads give solid, committed performances. There’s real tension at times—though oddly, my biggest fear was Pike’s phone battery dying. I'm not sure that was the intended horror, but it got me.

It’s a simple and effective setup that rattles along at a decent pace. Yet, it somehow manages to feel both over- and underwhelming. The ending is clearly signposted, and when it arrives, it feels like the film skips over a few crucial details. Still, it’s enjoyable enough for what it is—tense in the right places, well-acted, and crucially, it doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Gripping Suspense Thriller - Hallow Road review by GI

This is a superbly written suspense thriller with the action of the film mostly taking place inside a car as two desperate parents rush to aid their distressed daughter. Matthew Rhys plays Frank, a stressed executive type and Rosamund Pike is Maddie, his wife who is a paramedic. They receive a late night call from Alice, their student daughter who has earlier stormed off taking Dad's car after a big family row. Alice tells them she's at an isolated wooded road and has hit a woman who stepped into the road with the car and who is now badly injured. What follows is the tense conversations between the three of them as they try to keep it together, tell her what to do, argue, desperately trying to assist the terrified Alice and deal with their own anguish. As the situation becomes more clear Frank even starts planning how they can cover up whatever has happened to protect Alice who it is clear has been overly protected and indulged by him for years. If there is any major criticism of this film it's that the ending seems a little too baffling to satisfy the expectations set up by the narrative. But that aside this is an enjoyable and interesting film that has the essence of the macabre to it.