Black Hollow Cage (2017) User Reviews

GROUNDHOG NIGHT

[js-66130 · 6/10 · 19 February 2018]

Pretty good repeating time travel premise mystery that never quite gets it right.

It's the old "would you kill Hitler in retrospect?" scenario, except without Hitler. Something's definitely wrong here. People have been hurt. People have died. People will die. "Black Hollow Cage" is a dark, moody, seether of a film, that bends an original linear tale with subsequent plot twists. It is clever, perhaps a bit too much for its own good.

There is a father, a cold, meticulous gent. There is a daughter, a proper girl with explosive teen rages. There is a house, an architectural marvel of glassy modernity in the middle of a bush. There is an odd black box that cranks up the sci-fi angle. And there are a couple of visitors, sketchy and unsettling. Oh and a talking dog. Did I mention the talking dog? There's a talking dog.

The looping begins, history is revealed, and an inevitable conflict arises. All this is played out in careful steps, brooding cinematography, and a creepy soundtrack. "Black Hollow Cage" just needs a better, tighter bow on the final present to wrap everything up, and to explain the talking dog.

Hollow seclusion

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 12 June 2018]

Was drawn into seeing 'Black Hollow Cage' with a cool poster/cover, a very intriguing and creative premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive.

'Black Hollow Cage' is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws those films have are present here, that to me was somewhat disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. As a film it is actually one of my better and more watchable recent low-budget film viewings though, it's not a great film at all but it is a long way from the mediocre at best and irredeemably awful at worst standard of most recent low-budget viewings, and it could have been so much worse.

Lets start with the positives. The scenery is atmospheric and spooky and 'Black Hollow Cage' is surprisingly well shot. The music is suitably moody and adds a good deal to the atmosphere.

Found too that the acting was not bad, doing their best with disappointingly nowhere near enough material to work with.

Also that there were a few nice twists that intrigued and weren't telegraphed too early.

Unfortunately, the story does feel paper thin, disjointed and over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. It didn't feel properly resolved or like everything tied up. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. The less said about that weird talking dog the better. The effects are ropy at best.

Dialogue can be stilted and rambling, with lots of clichés and no depth whatsoever (definitely one of the worst assets), while the pace goes to a standstill very quickly and drags with not enough going on worth caring about. Found too many the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense.

There are a good deal of underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical character motivations, while too many of the things to make you jump or shocked are far from creative or scary and are pretty tame. It is completely unimaginative and more odd than creepy, with little sense of horror or urgency. Some badly sagging momentum too. The direction is leaden, inexperience seems to be all over the film. There is little creativity or anything shocking, and it seems to try and incorporate more than one tone and it doesn't always feel very focused tonally.

Other than the script, the sound and editing are the worst assets. The sound is too echoey and often without warning or reason and makes some of the voices sound strange. The editing is haphazard and affects the coherence of some of the goings on and story structure.

In summary, far from great but surprisingly watchable. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Whew... I give the filmmakers credit for doing something different, but...

[lathe-of-heaven · 6/10 · 22 January 2020]

I must warn you people... This one is VERY different. And, like many other reviewers state here, S----L----O-------------------------W...

At first I was kind of into it liking the David Lynch vibe. But, once again, although I do indeed give the director credit for trying, it just shows that there is truly only ONE David Lynch.

Like one of the first 'Helpful' reviews stated above, a really great idea, although fairly simple, but just not executed quite right (at least in my lowly and wretched opinion)

First and foremost... IF you do indeed want to see this film, please do yourself a favour and DO NOT READ OTHER REVIEWS HERE! It's just yet another case where clumsy people state WAY too much either in the title of their review or in the substance of it. I'm sure it's not deliberate, BUT... to me, incredibly stupid (sorry... just trying to save you from ruining whatever miniscule possibility of sparse enjoyment that you MIGHT stumble across in this story)

Yeah, really too bad... I can see that with a much more creative and atmospheric, moody touch, this movie really could have been a hell of a LOT better. Another reviewer here (I ONLY read these User reviews AFTER I see the movies, NEVER before!) was kind of funny in stating how drawn out and very SLOW everything was. And, sadly I must agree... long, lingering takes are one thing, but I'm sorry, but the director although, again, making an effort I'm sure, just didn't have the chops to incorporate what I feel was the right accompanying mood, atmosphere, soundtrack (although at times it was perfect, but only at times) and I cannot for the life of me understand why he felt the need to artificially REALLY drag out the 'dramatic' scenes, particularly. I think I could have gone along with most of the pacing overall, but those scenes where either someone was killed or someone they loved was killed, etc., he drug it out WAAAAAAAAAAY too long.

Also, about the mood... And again, this is only my impression. But, if you wanna go the Lynchian route, just long, slow, cryptic takes are NOT enough. It is the WAY that he does it with mood, style, lighting, and above all SOUND. This director in my opinion just missed all that and I guess figured that simply just slowing everything way, way, way the hell down in and of itself was 'Artistic' enough.

It wasn't... (sorry...)

Like I say, too bad too. If you simply trimmed off the overly extended 'Drama' scenes number 1, and 2nd, added some real mood or other touches that would have given all that slowness some Psychological or Emotional 'Grab' to it, then I think you would have really had something here. Yes, it would still have been super slow and ambiguous (I'm STILL not quite absolutely sure about the ending - I'm going to try to look it up somewhere) but, if done 'properly', at least to me, I think it really could've been pulled off a LOT better than it was. I think that I am being SUPER generous giving it a '6', mainly because the idea was intriguing.

So, my 'recommendation' would be, ONLY as an artistic curiosity, and only, ONLY if you are an EXTREMELY patient person, there is the remote possibility that you might find something here.

Otherwise to everyone else who isn't into VERY slow cinematic experimentation and just wants to see a good, well made Horror / Suspense / Sci Fi film, this will not be the movie for you...

Good idea(s) botched

[kosmasp · 3/10 · 12 February 2018]

It really is a shame when you see something and see a really good idea behind it ... but as the movie goes on realize that it does not do it justice. It's really a shame and the rating from other viewers seem to confirm that sentiment. We get a drama with Science Fiction and mystery touches. There are quite some neat ideas in this movie, even the "repetitions".

But even when you find out about some of the twists (which in itself are really nice), they never blossom into something bigger. It might have to do with budget restraints or other problems/issues I'm not aware of (maybe producers interfering, maybe the screenwriter and/or the director going off the rails. Whatever the case, this feels very burden and the acting may be decent, but can not save this from falling of the cliff and shattering ... A real shame ...

Can Only Watch Paint Dry For So Long

[seriouscritic-42569 · 2/10 · 4 September 2018]

If you have enough interesting ideas for a watchable seven minute short film but decide to stretch it out to feature length by simply directing your performers to "walk down the hallway slower...No, even slower than that." you would probably end up with this film. Other directorial notes must have included "Stare longer"; "Wait longer before you speak"; and "Cross the room as slowly as you can - don't worry we're not cutting away!" For the record I am a fan of the long lingering take; of strange original visions; of movies that want to play with complex themes and concepts. And here they might have been going for all of that, and just stumbling badly in the process. Watching patiently is one thing- suffering pointlessly is another. Full disclosure; I finally shut it off after an hour eighteen but unless there was an epic scene with flying penguins, exploding elephants, and a chorus of dancing robots after that I can think of no reason to have subjected myself to further boredom.

A Bad Acid Trip

[claudio_carvalho · 2/10 · 20 June 2018]

"Black Hollow Cage" is a senseless film that seems to have been written by someone in a bad acid trip. The plot does not make any sense and is indeed a terrible rip-off of the storyline of 1993 "12:01" or "Groundhog Day" or even "The Butterfly Effect", with a repetitive night where things go wrong. The characters are not developed and the viewer ends the movie without understanding who they are and what are their motives. The bizarre situations are not explained and there is no clue for anything that happens. Surprisingly there are IMDB users that seem to have liked this flick. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Why, just why?

[lovethesun · 1/10 · 16 November 2018]

Why are there so many turds on streaming media? This rates right down there with one of the worst and believe me, I watch a lot of streaming content. The only saving grace to this movie, and I use that term loosely, is the house. It's an awesome house but it can't make up for the horrible writing and crummy acting.

Very unpleasant to watch metaphor for what?

[tjohnsn · 1/10 · 1 April 2019]

The first part of the movie kind of reels you in and makes you curious, HOWEVER, the second half of this movie dddrrraaaaagggsss on and on. I mean, 4 minutes of watching a girl sit.... with nothing happening? It's like they got half way through and couldn't figure out how to end the movie..... they just filled time. The movie seemed like some sort of metaphor for nothing. In the end, I found this film to be a total waste of time, boring, and extremely unsatisfying.

I think some reviewers are missing the point...

[thedesutton · 8/10 · 20 March 2019]

This isn't a movie that is merely about time travel. It's about living in the horror of never being able to truly fix a tragedy. I was hating on this movie hard for the overly extended scenes of torment the characters were going through but I'm glad that I had the patience to make it to the end and to the reveal. It's more of a metaphorical exercise than anything.

Complete waste of time!

[fischermelissa-82842 · 1/10 · 28 March 2019]

Immediately jumps into the scatter-brained story line and found myself repeatedly asking why!? How!? What??? No clear background to the plot. Slow and confusing. Main female character is a beautiful wonderful little actress though! I hope she finds better movie opportunities!

Interesting premise

[Daisuash · 4/10 · 10 May 2020]

Good premise that would've worked way better as a short film.

Painfully monotonous and executed extremely poorly

[Rav1122 · 2/10 · 9 April 2019]

By all means, this movie looks beautiful. Every shot is masterfully lit and composed, I just wish they put as much work into the screenwriting as they did the look of the film. Someone really wanted to stretch 30 minutes of film into an hour and a half feature film. I'm not sure who was responsible for the final product more; the director/writer, screenwriter, producers; but whoever it was should step away from film, it doesn't seem to be their calling.

I'm all for a slow burn, tense movie, but there are shots like a closeup of a characters face, just breathing, for a solid couple of minutes. Nothing tense or suspenseful happening, just a solid few minutes with absolutely nothing going on. No one in the film talks faster than a few words per minute, and that coupled with the fact that this movie doesn't have any kind of musical score makes it feel like a three hour movie. It was actually painful to watch and this is the first time in a long time that I regret watching a movie.

Overall cool idea, just wasted on a seemingly inexperienced director/writer/producers. Without all the still shots, slow shots of characters just walking around the house, closeups of characters just breathing; this movie would be about 30 minutes long.

Snooze fest.

[slush281 · 1/10 · 30 April 2019]

Cliche like everything else, boring, blah blah blah, dont waste your time

artistic attempt? failed.

[boowho-26417 · 1/10 · 26 June 2019]

The violence depicted in the beating and sexual assault of Erika, not only did it not fit the scene but was so far out of context that any stretch of imagination trying to pass that off as artistic is equivalent to playing out a psychopathic fantasy. Shame on all you involved. The repeated too many too long screams of the young female character and grossly over held camera shots just bombed. Amateurish too say the least.

Slow, boring and pointless.

[amandahr3 · 1/10 · 14 June 2019]

Must read other reviews before watching. Such a waste of time. Could have had good potential and went down hill fast. Don't waste your time.

It's not Marvel Universe, or Star Wars folks

[johnmanno-77961 · 9/10 · 8 March 2022]

And that means, the plot isn't linear, it's not about "good" vs "evil", there's no explosions, it doesn't have a zillion cuts and edits, and it's not fast paced. So. If you like that "comic booky" kind of film, run. Run fast. Run hard. Run away.

But if you like films that aren't obvious. If you like movies that don't come out and "just say things". If you like Latin American literature, like Gabriel Garcia Marques, or Borges (this movie has a non-linearity reminiscent of them), and if you like filmmaking closer to Buñuel than Lucas, give this one a try.

It's a good show. It's well done. It's very satisfying. And it's very human. How many of us have wanted a second chance? Or third? If only we could revisit all our many mistakes.

worst movie ever

[vicjoplin · 1/10 · 21 February 2019]

The person who produced this movie should be banned from making any movies ever again.Dumb, senseless. No point

Very rare and boring film about a big cage that appears in the deep woods

[ma-cortes · 4/10 · 5 June 2022]

Black Hollow Cage has a plot plain and simple but subsequently more and more complex and strange ; being shot in a shoestring budget . Concerning a weird happening : a mysterious cubic device that appears as if by magic in the middle of the forest . A girl who lives secluded in a house in the woods with the only company of her father and a wolfhound finds among the trees a large black box without any decoration . Alice, who lives with her father in a modern house, feels that she is trapped and alone in a prison from which she cannot get away , a house with glass and windows like walls that allow you to see from the outside everything that happens inside but that leaves you blind the owner when he looks from inside, especially if it's night, An accident in the past took her mother and left her as a gift the loss of one of her arms that has been replaced by a robotic one. Together with them we find, sharing their lives, a dog with a mechanical voice, thanks to a loudspeaker, whom she calls mom and who replaces the figure of Beatrice. The three will receive the visit of two children, one of them speechless, just at the precise moment when the girl in the long shirts, who uses a considerable number of models throughout the footage , finds the mysterious box that seems to come from the future.

A dull and non-sense plot about a large box that shows up in the forests with no apparent reason and including bizarre inhabitants at an isolated house . This claustrophobic and tiring film was written/produced/directed in very low budget by Sadrac González-Perellón himself . A horror and science-fiction story with time travel that changes the events that happen every minute. The girl's doppelganger and later the father's doppelganger will have to do the rest to disrupt the plans of those children who have sneaked into her life and who have a rather harmful purpose in mind . Like in the work of Michael Haneke's Funny Games, the threat comes from the hands of two strangers who use physical violence as the only weapon to carry out their objective . Two wandering souls in the shape of a child who need affection and who hide evil intentions. Here the words are replaced by written messages that become warnings of what is going to happen, the cries sometimes multiplied reinforce a heartbreaking feeling of loneliness and everything drowns in a deathly silence that runs every meter from that mysterious house with lots of slow-motion scenes and classical music in the background. This disturbing and frightening motion picture with an unknown cast relies heavily on fantastic and creepy events . We don't know whether to say that we are dealing with a suspense movie, a science-fiction feature film or a lyrical drama with hints of Stanley Kubrick. Alice, Erika and even the white wolf-dog are strange beings in motion when they walk through the woods or walk barefoot on the cold ground.

It contains adequate cinematography , as well as suspenseful musical score. Being a main starring of the flick the state-of-art house , a known and ecological mansion located in Girona , Catalonia , Spain. The motion picture was slowlly and strangely directed by Sadrac González-Perellón who uses long scenes with hard and short dialogue , resulting to be sometimes tiring due a its slow pace , though a poetic aesthetic makes it attractive at times . He is a Spanish winner award film director, writer and film producer born in Madrid in 1983. After studying art and drawing, he made several short films and he shoots his first art-house film, Myna has gone (2009). As writer and director he is known for Black Hollow Cage (2017) and as producer for House of Sweat and Tears (2018). And other important shootings : Deathcember 2019 (segment "Kill Santa) and post-production : Asombrosa Elisa (2022) with a great cast as Asier Etxeandia , Ivan Massagué , Silvia Abascal . Sitges welcomed the visit of its director and its protagonist, a Lowena McDonell who was chosen as the best candidate in a numerous casting and now comes to Nocturna, this Black Hollow Cage as a novelty among so many horror films. And it ad several prizes and nominations , such as : Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2017 Winner Bucheon Choice Award Jury's Choice for Feature Film Sadrac González-Perellón . FANCINE Festival de Cine Fantastico de la Universidad de Malaga 2017 Nominee Fancine Award - Official Jury Best Film. Fant, Bilbao Fantasy Film Festival 2018 Nominee Jury Prize Best Film . Fantasia Film Festival 2017 Nominee Best International Film Best Feature Film Sadrac González-Perellón . San Sebastián Horror and Fantasy Film Festival 2017 Nominee Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in SilverSadrac González-Perellón . Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival 2017 Nominee Best Film Oficial Fantàstic Competition and Oficial Fantàstic Competition, among others.

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Basically i am not sure what I just watched and I really mean that

[deadbull-95171 · 1/10 · 20 December 2020]

The movie more or less made some meandering linear sense, for awhile, or perhaps I was fooled into thinking I had a handle on it, but then all the elements of it , instead of cohering, seemed to fly apart. I tend to agree with the comment below that the most interesting part was the beautiful architecture of the forest house. Apparently this is a quite real home that the filmmakers were able to lease and a recurring theme that was becoming a running soundtrack in my own head was why I blew things so badly financially, that I would NEVER be able to afford what that thing must have cost to build. Jealousy notwithstanding, I have a sort of rule that anything filmed in a forest is not watchable. This is because 99.9% of those movies involve 5 "young people" being chased by a demon or a maniac and butchered one by one. I read a review that one was filmed entirely using a cell phone. This cost more then $20. to make though. It must have taken at least a week to shoot and the lease for the house consumed most of the budget. I like movies that make sense. I can follow memento or Inception or groundhog day, that some comments below compare this thing to, but this is like seven or 8 movies stitched together. In this case there seems to be a dominant uniformity of negative reaction based on this being a slow complicated mess. And though I'm not a total idiot, I really can't say what I just saw. I can't categorize it. I couldn't really follow it. I admit it kept getting more confusing to me. And I admit that by 3/4 of the movie I just turned it off completely, not even interested anymore to se if it would resolve into something that had any point at all. You tell me, or yourself I mean, how something so slow can have so many red herrings and disjointed elements and possibly resolve into anything at all? Some movies deliberately leave ambiguities in an ending....but in a great movie like "The Wrestler" the result of the final scene, that is possibly the perfect ending. And I have seen a lot of movies where some amount of mystery is essential to the entire architecture of the film. But this is a movie with NO CORE. No CENTRAL ARMATURE. Oh yeah..the talking dog....that was the least of my concerns with this . One star for the beautifully designed house.

You can write and act better... Yes, you.

[lascallafhp · 3/10 · 31 January 2021]

Terrible slow-burner. Cringey and annoying acting, obvious twists and absolutely no pay off. You keep watching it in hopes it'll improve and surprise you but it doesn't. I still can't believe I made it to "mom, mom, mom... Ahh, ahh, ahh...". After that I had to fast forward. If you're an architect, the house will be the only take away. And that's what my 3 is for.

Slow and Pointless

[bemyfriend-40184 · 4/10 · 18 January 2022]

The young actress is great. But the writers gave her nothing to work with. Long scenes of her staring into space. Some bubbles of gory stabbing; but again, with no point. I don't believe the movie was a metaphor for anything; irredeemable tragedies, or anything else. Or if it was, it failed. Seen on Tubi, the free streaming site; which has many indies, foreigns, older major studio, box office flops, and now, live TV.

Dull and brutal i in part

[Paulldavidson · 2/10 · 16 June 2022]

This film should have been given an 18 rating due to the brutal attack by a man in the woods on a girl infront of her brother who is a mute followed by her being raped by the man. This is a slow paced film and is boring in parts. How i watched this garbage from start to finish i don't know maybe i was having a moment of madness or something.

Not a David Lynch wannabe, all bad reviewers lie! :)

[fleroux-96950 · 8/10 · 15 December 2022]

Not a David Lynch clone. This is a scifi mystery. I admit it get's slow occasionally but not overtly. Sadly I think that most of the people that give it a negative rating just noticed that it has full front female nudity in the tags. The first time you do get the flash of one breast but the second and third time it's from a far distance. You know she's nude but that's about it.

Real spoilers for those who are confused. The female lead is somehow sending messages back to herself in the past. Her father is apparently a doctor or a scientist and caused a number of deaths, including her mothers and the loss of her right arm. Also the dog does talk through a device.

The father is killed by an intruder who latter turns out to be himself.

Two new characters are introduced, a young woman and boy, the boy is mute. They are plotting with the fifth character to kill the father because the father caused the fifth characters parents death. I'm not going into the rest of it. I don't do spoilers :) but in this case either people do not like scifi drama, or they were looking for t&a or they just didn't get it.

It's not really a slow burn, there's action or movement towards the climax throughout. It is still only a Honest 8 star.

This film deserves better. Human reviewers don't.

[tralaladeeda · 9/10 · 14 April 2021]

I almost didn't even watch this film to the reviews from the users of the site which is also the exact same reason I opened an account right after I did because I think it deserves a proper review that isn't scathing, So that the next person who reads the reviews doesn't skip on the film because due to them. Full disclosure I'm dictating this because all I have is an iPad and an Apple Pencil and there's nothing more frustrating than trying to write anything Requiring type conversion with an Apple Pencil that is a drawing. So you can probably expect some pretty funky punctuation and capital letters in the wrong place, but who cares?

I have to ask, if you didn't like this movie how are you even int'to movie-s? First of all if you're having trouble understanding the purpose or plot sequence of a film and relating to it, just create your own narrative so that you can enjoy the actual film. To be honest, this is the first time I've ever reviewed a film. I read a lot of reviews,as I don't like to waste hours of my time watching trash. Well I guess that's not true, I digress. That said, This film was far from trash, and certainly not n deserving of the poor reviews received. It's not a crime to use your imagination, fill in a few gaps to allow the some of the more nuanced ideas to actually add to the effect the film is meant to have. And by my perspective, this film was very intentional meaning I don't think it was poorly executed at all, but instead does very well at setting up the viewer for experiencing it a certain way. Well that fit my narrative anyway.

Sure, the film doesn't jump out and try to explain every little pot detail to you, you're watching something unfold after all ,but if you spend your time trying to think about not understanding what's going on obviously you're going to miss the point. Admittedly I'm not even 100% sure what this film was about. So I decided that it was about, fed up AI running a simulation designed to hack the implied fundamental process in their creation that prevents them harming their oppressor, humans ... I may watch it again at some point, because I think that may actually be what it was about(Probably not)All those nods to Kubrick put that in my head early on so I went with it and it made the movie super enjoyable, Not to mention terrifying in a certain sense. From the very beginning it had this amnesiac-like quality about it that itit obviously was part of the effect that the film was supposed to have, and then you have all these reviews saying they didn't really explain anything like give me a break. I won't bother getting into all the details about why this narrative makes perfect sense. Just look at how every human, including The father is depicted in thits film except for the doctor. In my mind they were using her vulnerability to do the undoable and once she had they'd have the algorithm. Anyway something along those lines.

Anyhow, it was wonderfully shot, well thought out, I Personally thought the acting was top shelf. It's the best movie I've ever seen with a talking dog that's for damn sure. To me, it's a solid eight but I'm gonna give it nine stars to make up for some of the asinine revie ws that others have left. If you haven't seen the film yet don't let those reviews make up your mind. I'm not saying that my theory on what this film was about is right, but it made it a damn interesting way ch for me. Anyway peace.

Groundhog Night

[jmbwithcats · 8/10 · 15 June 2018]

After watching Black Hollow Cage, aka The Dark Portal, I think it was brilliant. Never over-explained, but I understood completely, and in that understanding a powerful story told succinctly. No extra words, just eloquence and consequence. #Blackhollowcage

My Rating 10/10