Arctic Hollow (2024) Poster

(2024)

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1/10
A film with a $5000 budget
Xavier_Stone14 January 2024
Just think of the things you could do with 5k. Here we have a movie that is basically filmed 90% in a dark basement so there is no spending on set design, or much of anything else.

The script and dialogue sequences are bad, plane rental is $1500, actors are friends of the writer/director and paid min wage. Not much else to spend the budget on. Oh, the shock ending, $1000 on cgi.

Movies like this should be reserved for a separate part of IMDB. Self funded, vanity projects or Indie categories so that expectations are super low before hand.

Not much else to write here, ended up watching at 2x speed and then switched to 4x. Not much time wasted.
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3/10
An underwhelming and disappointing genre effort
kannibalcorpsegrinder23 February 2024
Trying to get past a traumatic incident, a fighter pilot gets wind of his assistance in a necessary extraction mission to rescue friends of his in a trek to the Alaskan circle to find a passageway to a Middle Earth, but when he gets stranded with them finds the area guarded by savage, unbelievable creatures.

There wasn't a whole lot to be had with this one. Among its few positives stem from the general setup at play here which manages to generate a solid setup at its main core. With the early setup showing the pilot to be dealing with his issues involving the tragic accident and his memories of the strange encounter that drags him into the search to rescue them, this provides the kind of intriguing setup that would work quite well as a means of getting him into the mix to battle the creatures. That has quite a lot to like about it with the final half featuring the atmospheric encounters within the darkened caves underground as the creatures emerge to battle the survivors that provides some rather chilling conceptual sequences at the center of this one for the main likable points here. This one does have a few major drawbacks to be had here. The main drawback to be had with this one is a seriously dull and plodding pace that's almost impossible to explain why due to the film being this short. There's little reason why a film that barely cracks the running time this one does to spend as much time as it does with so much extraneous material where it focuses on his backstory with the couple at the bar which brings him together into their sphere, his history including the traumatic accident that sends him into the heavy drinking stupor, and the utterly bland setup with the group being stranded on the mountain and needing to be rescued. None of these aspects are all that interesting or enjoyable to see play out and just lead to a wholly plodding and uneventful focus here. On top of that, there's also the excessively problematic special effects. The fact that the generally underutilized creatures look so terrible when they're shown on-screen in the absolute darkness of the caves at the end is a massively disappointing factor where it's just so lackluster to have them shown in such an environment that it's so laughably cheesy and inexcusable to be shown so briefly for what barely amounts to be worth it in terms of how bad it all looks. As well, the fact that the other effects featured here are just as bad, with a horrendously bad sound design that brings everything into a generally unlistenable muffle and a lighting design that makes everything so dark as to be hard to make out, these factors all bring about a rather large series of factors that holds it back.

Rated Unrated/R: Language and Violence.
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1/10
Don't bother, waste of a good movie
domsickles15 January 2024
DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME! You know, this movie had a great idea going for it. Sadly however, they missed the mark entirely. The video work wasn't great, used a lot of dark scenes. Seems like 90% of the movie was shot in the dark to try and skew the fact this is a horrible movie. They used CGI for firing a gun and pitiful sound effects for the gun. The acting was very...VERY sub par.

Wasn't a very long movie but what would/could you expect when I think a 10 year old wrote the script.

Don't know what their budget was for this movie, but they could have spared a bit more.

When you take into account that the main character/actor has only been in films since 2017 and has 12 under his belt, it stands to reason why it's as bad as it is.

Such a disappointment.
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1/10
You Don't See Anything
icocleric4 February 2024
This was honestly awful. For most of the film you can see literally nothing. I know they are in a dark cave, but it was in desperate need of better lighting. So you could at least see more than pitch black, and the actors faces.

I have seen teenagers on YouTube do a better job with less budget. You couldn't see the creatures at all. You just heard roaring noises. I think I caught a glimpse of a claw?

As well as not being visually interesting. It was just all round dull. With little story, and dull acting. The concept seemed interesting, so it was a let down that it was this boring. It's the most boring film I've seen in a while.
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5/10
Great effort with a low budget
ptbyrdie9 February 2024
Warning: Spoilers
Obviously, this movie was made on a budget. The film makers did there best to add some heart to a very simple fantastical tale. The snowy parts were great, the script perhaps needed another pass but was good enough.

The second half of the movie was subterranean, and as far as I know could have been shot in a five foot square cave. That's budget filmmaking for you! They use lack of literal vision to suggest their overall vision. They could have done more to ramp up the tension, though. I know their FX budget was small, but they could gave done more to give us a sense of the danger from the theropod monsters threatening them.

But this was a sincere attempt to make a compelling monster movie on a low budget, and I think their solution (film in a dark cave, don't see the monsters) is a good enough solution. I just think we would have been more convinced if we'd seen a little more tooth and claw, and what they could do.

Five out of ten, for sincerity and effort mainly. I think there are some good filmmakers involved in this.
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1/10
"you want a piece of this!?!"
amymay-699165 April 2024
And other such AMAZING one liners for this horror of an excuse got a movie. Like it has been said bwfore---it's DARK. Literally only ten minutes of this movie are clearly visible-8 minutes into he beginning and two minutes at the end. Everything else is just reddish light cave scenes of a hand or a foot, LITERALLY just absolutely pitch black scenes,and sometimes a headlamp shining on the opposite character's face. It was awful,and only made worse by the TERRIBLE acting and cheesy dialogue. Don't even get me started on the lady's father's theory of middle earth,but then it only being 40 or so miles into the 4000 miles to the center of the earth that life appears,and her belief that her father,who disappeared FIVE YEARS AGO is somehow still alive in nowhere earth. Just an all around dumpster fire stinker of a movie. It's too late for me I can't unsee this but you have a chance. Save yourself.
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7/10
I was entertained
nycfan-9147315 January 2024
I stumbled across this movie when I was searching for the 2018 movie Arctic. Being that I'm a sucker for movies that take place in the snowy elements I decided to give it a try knowing full well it is a lower budget indy film.

I didn't have a ton of expectations but was thoughorly entertained to be honest, haha. It's a monster movie but it's not gory or violent. It's more of a Jules Verne adventure film that has some heart to it. Don't get me wrong it has some tense moments and some jump scrares, but to me it's the overall advernture that kept me intrigued.

It's only 70 minutes, so it's not a long commitment. Again, I love films that take place in snowy isolation so that influences my rating.
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6/10
What this film gets right?
smoothambience3 May 2024
Imagination. Setting. Story.

It's a great idea. It's intriguing. Deals with the inner earth theory with a possible entrance in the Arctic. Hooked me.

It's a great setting. Dark, cold, foreboding. Give the filmmakers credit for trudging up into the mountainous wilderness and getting difficult shots in 4 feet of snow. People keep complaining the film was too dark when it got into the cave system. Well, caves are dark, and it's not that dark. Problem people have today is that they watch films on their phones with brightness turned down. This movie is meant to be watched in the dark, at night, in a dark room. Watch it like that and it's fine.

Story. It's actually got a good story. Two lonely people with difficult life backstories full of regret trying to find meaning and companionship in their lives in the most desolate of situations.

This isn't a traditional horror movie with gore and blood, this is more like a fantasy with a story to tell.

Lastly, it's ultra low budget, and better than most low budget films. If you need a 50 million dollar production with A list actors just move along. Don't pretend you didn't know it was a low budget and then come on here and rant about it being a low budget.

At least complain about the story. Who cares what the budget is? Are movies like this perfect? No, but at least look at what they actually did do on a $3K budget. It's actually impressive when you think about it.

So tired of reading reviews where people complain about the budget. Who cares? They make terrible movies for 100 million. A budget isn't the concern. The story is. I thought the story was fine. 70 mins. No complaints.
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