Hallow Road

The movie begins in the quiet early hours of the morning, around 2am, in a family home where signs of a recent argument are clear. Broken glass and untouched food suggest a heated disagreement, and inside, Maddie ([Rosamund Pike]) and her husband Frank ([Matthew Rhys]) are asleep. Their peace is disturbed when the smoke alarm blares, prompting Maddie to take an urgent call from their eighteen-year-old daughter, Alice ([Megan McDonnell]). Alice has taken Frank’s car without permission and driven into the nearby woods following an argument with her parents. During the call, Alice admits she has hit a girl who suddenly ran out onto the road.

Without hesitation, Maddie and Frank jump into Maddie’s car and head towards Hallow Road, Alice’s location, which is approximately forty minutes away. As they race through the night, Alice confesses she has been high on MDMA for four hours and admits she never returned home from her flat, where she shares space with her boyfriend Jakob. The tension in the vehicle escalates as Alice’s anxiety grows; she desperately informs her parents that she has called an ambulance—though her words reveal her panic, she struggles to keep calm. Maddie, with her paramedic background, guides Alice in performing CPR on the injured girl, urging her to keep going even as the situation darkens — Alice’s terror intensifies when she reports that her compressions might have caused the girl’s chest to cave in, suggesting she fears they may have killed her.

Contrary to Maddie’s advice, believing the girl might be dead, Frank urges Alice to get back into the car, and she complies. As the family talks further, Alice reveals she’s been under the influence of MDMA since earlier that day, and she admits she never called an ambulance after the accident. Growing anxious and increasingly fearful, the family begins to argue more intensely. It emerges that their initial disagreement had centered around Alice’s pregnancy — her parents believed she should terminate it, while she was uncertain.

During their drive, Maddie discloses she recently quit her job as a paramedic after a tragic mistake: she once mistook a pulmonary embolism for a panic attack, which resulted in someone’s death. The tension heightens when Alice warns her parents that another car is approaching her location. Frantic, Frank orders Alice to drag the dead girl’s body into the undergrowth, which Alice does, trembling with fear. Then, she reports that the girl’s face is changing—an indication of something deeply unsettling. Suddenly, Alice hangs up the phone, and Maddie and Frank listen in horror as a mysterious woman approaches Alice, claiming to be out driving with her husband and offering aid.

Despite Alice’s protests that her parents are on their way to pick her up after the accident, the woman refuses to leave. Her tone becomes increasingly interrogative and menacing. Maddie tries to ask her to depart, and it appears she temporarily leaves; however, Alice soon finds the girl’s body in the bushes. Just as Alice attempts to drive away, the woman’s voice is heard smashing through the quarter glass of the car, heightening the family’s terror.

In a tense moment, Frank and Maddie regain communication with the woman, who threatens to call authorities and disparages their belief that the incident is merely an accident. She insists that the girl Alice hit is actually alive and under her husband’s care. Frank confesses to the woman that he intended to take responsibility for Alice’s mistake, hoping to shield her from punishment. The woman sounds assured and finally hands the phone back to Alice, who solemnly vows to accept responsibility and tell her parents everything.

Soon, Frank and Maddie arrive on Hallow Road, only to find Alice missing, and a lifeless body in the undergrowth, which Maddie quickly recognizes as Alice. Shocked, Maddie refuses to believe it and quickly contacts emergency services to report what’s happened. However, Frank returns from inspecting the scene and declares that he has identified the body as Alice herself, throwing the family into deeper distress.

Maddie, overwhelmed by grief, refuses to accept their loss and secretly calls Alice again, only to discover she’s seemingly been kidnapped. As they continue into the woods in pursuit, the mysterious woman’s voice echoes over the phone, asserting she and her husband are now Alice’s surrogate parents and claiming they will “correct” her, much like other girls before her. When they learn that Alice is pregnant, the woman ominously states that they will do the same for her unborn child.

Desperate, Maddie pleads for a second chance, but the call abruptly ends as they confront a police roadblock. The next morning, police surround a scene filled with the corpse they believe is Alice. Detectives ([stephen-jones]) discuss the case, suggesting Alice was likely killed by a passing vehicle the night before, and that Frank and Maddie’s insistence on their phone conversation’s details probably reflect their trauma rather than reality.

Throughout the film, a dark atmosphere of suspicion, grief, and uncertainty persists, leaving viewers questioning what truly happened in those woods and whether the family’s fractured psyche clouds the truth. The haunting exploration of loss, guilt, and the horrors lurking in familiar surroundings makes this story a tense, unsettling journey into the unknown.

Last Updated: August 19, 2025 at 05:14