The House at Hallow End review – Home renovation horror finds emotional heft among horror | film

nMother Harper (Katie Parker) and her young daughter move in with her mother Sadie (Patricia Heaton) to help finish repairing the old upper part of the house, which was purchased with the intention of flipping it. Also along for the ride is Beth (Emma Fitzpatrick), a live-in carer who turns out to be pregnant. But the course of the property’s renovation was never smooth, and soon strange voices, shadows, and visions of a strange figure with a beak-like face began to affect Harper. But how real is the threat? Is it all just projections of a stressed psyche or is something supernatural going on?

At first, writer-director Angela Gollner’s feature debut (formerly The Beldham) feels like a low-budget version of The Babadook, the blockbuster hit from 2014 that saw the life of young widow Essie Davis perpetually on the verge of collapse. There’s already a similar interplay here about whether what’s tormenting Harper is an outside threat or has something to do with her mental state — but the situation turns out to be much sadder than was initially apparent.

This film belongs to a subgenre that we might call ‘tragic horror’, an emotionally tear-jerking film that falls within the broader horror genre – although even great melancholy horror classics like Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now are usually stronger on the colder side of making the audience cry. The House at Hallow End reflects this suggestion, with some familiar horror images preceding a strong concluding plot twist that lends emotional heft to everything that precedes it. It is a powerful and moving addition to the horror film series about the relationship between parent and child.