{Overlook Film Festival} Hallow Road (2025)

There’s a particular kind of magic that happens when a film sheds the expectation of realism and leans into the surreal. Babak Anvari’s Hallow Road understands this magic—and more importantly, it respects it. It feels like a whispered bedtime story told on a stormy night, or better yet, a crackling 1950s radio drama that crawls into your ears and stays there long after the final note. While marketed under the horror banner, Hallow Road is something else entirely—something quieter, more theatrical, and, dare I say, more haunting. It could have been a stage play. In fact, it wants to be one. And I love that about it.

Set almost entirely on a dark stretch of countryside road, Hallow Road uses minimalism as its greatest weapon. There’s no sprawling haunted house, no deranged serial killer, no swarm of CGI monsters. What it gives you instead is two parents, a car, and the slow, insidious dread that maybe—just maybe—the road ahead has a mind of its own. That’s the brilliance of the film. It strips the genre down to its emotional bones and still manages to tingle your spine. All while speaking authentically to how parents react when we are confronted by the voice of their child who desperately needs their help.

Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys play the parents, a couple clearly frayed at the edges. Their daughter has left after dropping a giant piece of news and the subsequent argument afterward. They don’t know how or why she ended up on Hallow Road, but they know she is in trouble. And so they drive. And argue (sometimes with themselves and sometimes with their daughter who exists only as a disembodied voice speaking from their phones). And they accuse. And they grieve. And then they drive some more. But don’t let the simple setup fool you—there’s nothing simple about what’s happening under the hood.

Pike, with her usual ice-queen precision, plays the “by the book” parent to perfection. She’s the one who follows the instructions, believes in rules, trusts the map. Rhys, on the other hand, leans into the “excuse-driven” archetype. He’s all gut feeling, reactive emotion, and old-fashioned superstition. Watching them clash—and watching the cracks in their logic widen as the road twists around them—is as suspenseful as any monster reveal. It is also a reflection that many parents can connect to. I certainly did.

In fact, the “monster” in Hallow Road is barely visible. It’s more of an idea, or a presence. It’s the fear of not being able to protect your child from the world. It’s the existential horror of handing over the keys of independence to someone you made from scratch. The film perfectly captures the paradox of parenting: you want them to go out and become their own people, but you also live in constant, silent terror that they’ll mess it all up—and that you won’t be there to help.

This emotional seesaw is the central tension of Hallow Road, and it’s where Anvari’s direction really shines. Known for Under the Shadow, Anvari has always had a gift for weaving the supernatural into the deeply personal. Here, he pulls it off again, grounding the strange happenings in very real anxieties. Fairies, or The Fae, are suggested more than shown, and their presence is handled with eerie reverence. If you like your folklore mysterious and ancient, this is absolutely your jam.

The fairies in Hallow Road aren’t your garden-variety glitter sprites—they’re closer to the terrifying, unknowable forces of Celtic myth. The ones who’ll trick you with riddles, swap your baby for a changeling, or lure you off the path with whispers. Their involvement, though peripheral, raises fascinating questions about blame, consequence, and how far you’d go to get your child back. To be fair they might not exist at all but where is the fun in that.

And all of it is bathed in light—exceptional lighting. Cinematographer Kit Fraser deserves real praise here. The film is split into visual phases, with filters and palettes that subtly shift depending on where we are in the story. The early scenes are awash in a pitch blackness with all of the mysteries and darkness the middle of the night brings. As things darken, we move into cool blues and oppressive blacks, punctuated only by the white-hot glare of headlights or the eerie glow of dashboard lights. And toward the film’s finale, a sickly crimson floods the screen, suggesting something ancient, dangerous, and irreversible is now in motion.

These visual cues aren’t just beautiful—they’re essential. In a film with such a small cast and limited setting, every detail counts. The lighting, sound design, and pacing all work in tandem to create a world that feels both claustrophobic and infinite—like a nightmare you can’t quite wake from.

One of the film’s cleverest achievements is its ability to maintain unrelenting tension from the very first minute. There’s no warm-up act. No slow slide into madness. We begin with panic, and we stay there. Every interaction between the parents is loaded, every silence heavy with unspoken blame. And yet, the film never feels overwrought or melodramatic. Instead, it’s paced like a stage play, with emotional peaks and valleys that mimic live theater’s natural rhythm. You can imagine a version of Hallow Road being performed in an intimate black box theater, with nothing more than two chairs, a steering wheel, and a shifting spotlight.

If there’s a knock to be made against the film, it’s that horror fans seeking a more traditional scare-fest may leave disappointed. There are no jump scares here. No possession scenes. No final girl showdown. But that’s not the story Anvari wants to tell. Hallow Road is about the horror that creeps in while you’re driving home from soccer practice. The kind that settles into your bones when your kid doesn’t answer your texts. It’s about the tiny, accumulating fears that, given the right circumstances, might just open a door to something… other.

By the end, you may not have all the answers. Some things are left deliberately vague—motivations, timelines, even the ultimate fate of the daughter. But the emotional journey? That lands hard. It leaves you shaken, a little gutted, and maybe hugging your kids tighter than usual.

In Hallow Road, Babak Anvari has crafted something deeply intimate and eerily universal. It’s a fairy tale for the emotionally exhausted. A horror story for the parental soul. A love letter to theater, folklore, and the strange roads we travel in between. If that sounds like your thing—and if you’re not afraid of getting a little lost along the way—then Hallow Road might just be the best film you didn’t know you were waiting for.

Eerie, elegant, and emotionally charged, Hallow Road is a glowing lantern on a long, dark journey. Let it guide you—just don’t stray too far off the path. I watched it as part of The Overlook Film Festival 2025. You can check it out on May 16, 2025.