Hallow Road

The film opens at 2am in a family home, where broken glass and untouched food indicate an argument has taken place. Paramedic Maddie and her husband Frank are sleeping. Awoken by a smoke alarm, Maddie takes a call from their eighteen-year-old daughter Alice who, having taken Frank's car and driven into the woods after an argument with her parents, hit a girl, who ran out into the road, with the car.

Maddie and Frank get into Maddie's car and start driving to Hallow Road: Alice's location, which is forty minutes away. Alice tells her parents that she has called an ambulance - Maddie uses her paramedic training to direct Alice in using CPR Alice's terror increases when she says that her chest compressions have caved in the girl's chest. Contrary to Maddie's advice and believing that the girl is dead, Frank encourages Alice to get back into the car and she does so.

The family talk longer, and Alice reveals that she has been high on MDMA for four hours. She never returned to the flat she shares with her boyfriend Jakob, like her parents thought she would on departing the house. Frank decides that he will take the blame for the accident on their arrival at Hallow Road. Alice soon reveals that she never called an ambulance after the accident. The family's anxiety and fear increase through the car journey as they argue - it is revealed that their original argument arose from Alice's pregnancy, and her parents' belief that it should be terminated. Maddie reveals that she has recently quit her job as a paramedic after causing a death by mistaking a pulmonary embolism for a panic attack.

Still with some distance to drive, the parents are disturbed when Alice says that another car is approaching her location. Frank orders her to drag the body of the girl into the undergrowth, and she does so before saying, terrified, that the girl's face is changing, and hanging up. Getting back on the phone with her, Maddie and Frank hear a mysterious woman approach Alice, saying that she is out driving with her husband, and kindly offering her help. Despite Alice asking the woman to leave, and saying her parents are coming to collect her after an accident, the woman does not leave - her tone becoming progressively more interrogatory and menacing.

Maddie speaks to the woman, asking her to leave, and she appears to do so before Alice reveals that she's found the body of the girl in the undergrowth. Alice attempts to drive away, and Maddie and Frank are terrified to hear the woman smash through the quarter glass of Alice's car. Eventually getting back on the phone, Frank and Alice speak to the woman who, threatening to call the authorities, is dissatisfied by their assertion that the situation is 'just an accident'. The woman also says that the unknown girl that Alice hit is actually alive and is being taken care of by her husband.

Frank reveals to the woman that he intended to take the fall for Alice's mistake. The woman sounds satisfied and hands the phone back to Alice. Alice tells her parents that she will take responsibility for what she did and will tell the woman as much. Minutes later, Frank and Maddie arrive on Hallow Road and pull up beside Alice's car. There is no sign of Alice, and a corpse is visible in the undergrowth. Maddie calls the emergency services and begins explaining the situation, before Frank returns from examining the corpse and says that it is Alice.

Maddie, refusing to believe it, hangs up on the emergency services and phones Alice again. Alice picks up the call, having seemingly been kidnapped by the mysterious woman and her husband. Driving further into the woods, Frank and Maddie listen to the woman monologue to Alice, saying that she and her husband are now her parents, that they will correct her, like many girls before her. Learning that Alice is pregnant, the woman says that they will correct her child too. Maddie begs that she and Frank be given another chance, before the call cuts off and the couple find the road blocked off by a police car.

In the morning, policemen surround the scene of the corpse, resembling Alice, with Frank and Maddie silent nearby. Two detectives discuss how in all likelihood Alice was killed the previous night by a passing car, and that Frank and Maddie's insistence that they spoke to her over the phone was just a trauma response.

• Rosamund Pike as Maddie
• Matthew Rhys as Frank
• Megan McDonnell as Alice
• Paul Tylak as an officer
• Stephen Jones as a detective

The film is directed by Babak Anvari from a script by William Gillies. Ian Henry of London Film & TV and Lucan Toh of Two & Two Pictures produced alongside Richard Bolger of Hail Mary Pictures, with funding from IPR.VC, XYZ Films and Screen Ireland.{{cite web|url= https://deadline.com/2023/11/hallow-road-rosamund-pike-matthew-rhys-babak-anvari-1235612883/|website=Deadline Hollywood|accessdate=13 September 2024|title= Rosamund Pike & Matthew Rhys Board Hallow Road, XYZ Thriller From Babak Anvari|first=Matt |last=Grobar|date=November 15, 2023}}

Both Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys was cast as a married couple and Megan McDonnell as their daughter.Paul Tylak plays a police officer.{{cite web|url=https://www.praguereporter.com/home/2023/12/4/hallow-road-with-rosamund-pike-and-matthew-rhys-now-filming-in-prague/#google_vignette|website=Prague Reporter|accessdate=13 September 2024|title= 'Hallow Road', with Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys, now filming in Prague|date=December 4, 2023}}

Principal photography took place in late 2023 in Prague and Ireland. Filming locations included Greystones, County Wicklow in November 2023.{{cite web|url=https://www.iftn.ie/locationsireland/locationsnews/?act1=record&only=1&aid=73&rid=4295294&tpl=archnews&force=1|website=iftn.ie|accessdate=13 September 2024|title=

Hallow Road starring Rosamund Pike shooting in Ireland and Prague|date=30 Nov 2023}} Filming also took place at the FAK Films facility in Kladno, Czech Republic.{{cite web|url=https://www.screenglobalproduction.com/news/2023/11/17/hallow-road-filming-ireland-prague-dates-studio|website=kftv.com|accessdate=13 August 2024|title= Hallow Road producer reveals Ireland and Prague shoot details (exclusive)|first= Gabriella|last= Geisinger|date=17 Nov 2023}}

It premiered at the 2025 South by Southwest Film & TV Festival in March.{{Cite web |last=Grobar |first=Matt |date=2025-01-22 |title=Seth Rogen Comedy Series 'The Studio' To Open SXSW 2025; 'The Accountant 2,' 'Death Of A Unicorn', 'Drop,' 'Happy Face' & More Also To Screen |url=https://deadline.com/2025/01/sxsw-2025-lineup-the-studio-death-of-a-unicorn-more-1236263538/ |access-date=2025-01-24 |website=Deadline Hollywood}} It was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland by Universal Pictures on 16 May 2025. XYZ Films will distribute the film in the United States.{{cite web|url=https://deadline.com/2025/06/xyz-films-fall-release-thriller-hallow-road-rosamund-pike-1236420339/|title=XYZ Films Sets U.S. Fall Release For Babak Anvari's SXSW Thriller Hallow Road With Rosamund Pike & Matthew Rhys|website=Deadline Hollywood|first1=Melanie|last1=Goodfellow|first2=Andreas|last2=Wiseman|date=2 June 2025|access-date=2 June 2025}}

{{Rotten Tomatoes prose|92||37|consensus=Minimalist in presentation while getting great mileage out of Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys' superb performances, Hallow Road is a nerve-wracking thriller that takes audiences down a haunting path.|access-date=June 2, 2025|ref=y}}{{cbignore}} {{Metacritic film prose|71|15|ref=yes|access-date=June 2, 2025}}{{cbignore}}

{{reflist}}

• {{Official website|https://www.universalpictures.co.uk/micro/hallow-road}}
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Category:2025 films

Category:Irish thriller films

Category:British psychological thriller films

Category:Films shot in Prague

Category:Films shot in the Republic of Ireland

Category:Universal Pictures films