THE HOLLOW ONES Review: Grief, Ghosts and the Things We Leave Behind
Writer-director Samuel Weston Potter brings a deeply personal story of loss to the screen in a supernatural Halloween thriller that finds its greatest strength in its young cast, eerie atmosphere and emotional heart.
By Seth Metoyer | More Horror
Editor's Note: This review contains mild story spoilers, including elements of the film’s premise and supernatural themes, while preserving its major plot developments and ending.
There's something unsettling about horror stories set in quiet, rural communities. The empty roads, isolated houses, stretches of woods and that peculiar silence that settles over everything after dark. I grew up in Montana, so I know that atmosphere pretty well. There's a certain loneliness to those places that can feel peaceful one moment and downright ominous the next.
Watching THE HOLLOW ONES, the new independent supernatural horror film from writer, director and producer Samuel Weston Potter, brought some of those feelings back. Filmed in Utah, the movie captures that cold, melancholy atmosphere and puts it to work in a story about two young brothers struggling with the loss of their parents.
At its heart, this is a film about grief and what happens when something sinister discovers exactly how to exploit it.
A Halloween Trip Into the Past
The story follows brothers Eli and Lane, played by Levi Potter and Owen Potter, who have been living with foster parents following the deaths of their mother and father. The boys are still navigating their grief, although each handles it differently. Their new family offers stability and genuine affection, but the emotional scars remain.
As Halloween approaches, local stories about an abandoned neighborhood called Hollow Ridge Creek begin circulating. Decades earlier, the community suffered a devastating flood, leaving behind rumors of strange behavior, sinister religious practices and people who disappeared.
Naturally, the boys become curious. And as we've learned from countless horror films over the years, telling kids to stay away from a creepy abandoned place practically guarantees they'll end up there.
What they discover is considerably more personal than any local ghost story. Inside a house that seems strangely familiar, the brothers encounter their supposedly deceased parents, alive and apparently waiting for them.
There's something immediately troubling about the reunion. The house contains familiar belongings, childhood memories come rushing back, and their parents seem eager to pick up where their lives left off. Yet little details feel peculiar, and the deeper the brothers become involved with this impossible reunion, the more disturbing the situation becomes.
Potter gradually introduces the mystery surrounding Hollow Ridge, including an old cult whose history connects to the neighborhood's tragic past. As the supernatural elements intensify, the film explores how easily grief can leave someone vulnerable to manipulation, especially children desperate to reclaim something they've lost.
Atmosphere, Performances and Independent Filmmaking
One of the things I appreciated most about THE HOLLOW ONES was its overall production quality. I've spent a good portion of my career working on independent films, and I know firsthand how difficult it can be to make a limited production look and sound convincing.
Potter has a good visual eye. The cinematography captures the isolation of the setting, and the film maintains a consistent, somber atmosphere. The lighting also deserves some credit, particularly during the darker sequences where visibility and mood need to work together.
The sound design is another positive. Dialogue remains clear, the environmental audio feels appropriately balanced, and the technical presentation generally holds together well. These details can make a substantial difference in independent horror, where production limitations sometimes become painfully obvious.
And then there are the kids.
I've always been impressed when young actors deliver convincing performances. Acting requires an emotional awareness that even seasoned performers sometimes struggle to communicate, so it's especially rewarding to see children handle dramatic material with sincerity.
Levi and Owen Potter do a solid job carrying much of the film's emotional weight. Their characters have different responses to grief, and that tension becomes increasingly important as the story progresses. The younger brother's longing to remain with his parents provides some particularly effective moments, while the older brother's growing concern helps ground the escalating supernatural events.
The adult cast also contributes to the film's credibility, bringing a welcome sense of warmth and concern to the story, particularly in the scenes involving the boys' foster family.
There's a sincerity to the performances that helps the film through some of its more familiar genre territory.
The Personal Story Behind THE HOLLOW ONES
After watching the film, I reached out to Potter for some additional insight into what inspired the story. His response revealed something that made the film considerably more personal than I initially realized.
The filmmaker drew inspiration from conversations with his own children about death, grief and family members they never had the opportunity to know.
Potter explained to More Horror:
"As a filmmaker, I wanted to explore the idea of dealing with loss combined with the eeriness of Halloween. But I want to explore it in a family-friendly way while trying to maintain a serious tone."
He also shared that his family had experienced profound personal loss, including the death of his youngest son at just ten days old. His two older sons would sometimes wonder what their younger brother might have been like as he grew older. They also spoke about Potter's father, who died before his oldest son was born.
Those conversations eventually led to the idea that would become THE HOLLOW ONES.
"We would have conversations about what it would be like if they could come back to life. And I thought this was an interesting idea: what if you trick-or-treating and found your dead parents at a house and they could re-create childhood memories, but they were just kind of off in a way?"
Potter began experimenting with scenes featuring his sons, Levi and Owen, and their performances helped convince him that the idea could sustain an entire feature film.
"When we did test scenes, I found that my two older boys, Levi and Owen, did so well and acted with such sincerity that I thought we should make the film together. And I think that really comes out in it."
Knowing that background adds another dimension to the performances. These are children working alongside their father to tell a story inspired by conversations their own family has experienced.
Potter hopes the film will leave viewers contemplating several overlapping emotions.
"My hope is that people will be simultaneously thinking a few different things as they watch it, loss, fear, and hope in moving forward after tragedy."
I think that intention comes through, particularly in the film's later moments.
When Grief Becomes the Monster
One of the more interesting aspects of THE HOLLOW ONES is the way its supernatural forces manipulate memory.
The boys encounter familiar objects, childhood experiences and moments they desperately want to revisit. These memories become increasingly important as the story develops, and Potter finds some unsettling material in the idea that the things we treasure most can also become tools of manipulation.
There's something genuinely creepy about a supernatural presence that understands your deepest emotional vulnerabilities. It can offer comfort, familiarity and even the illusion of restoring a broken family. The film's scariest trick might be how accurately it recreates the things its characters miss.
That concept gives the movie more substance than its familiar haunted-neighborhood and occult-cult ingredients might initially suggest.
The horror gradually shifts from the mystery of what happened at Hollow Ridge to the question of whether the boys can recognize the difference between their memories and the dangerous reality surrounding them.
Potter also introduces a spiritual dimension that I found interesting. Religious beliefs, questions of good and evil, and the idea of faith as a source of strength become increasingly relevant as the story moves toward its conclusion.
There's a distinctly Christian influence in some of these moments, which adds another layer to the supernatural conflict. I appreciated how the film incorporates that perspective into a story about children confronting loss and the temptation to remain emotionally trapped in the past.
There's also a surprisingly hopeful quality underneath the darkness, and that becomes increasingly apparent as the story approaches its resolution.
A Few Thoughts From Behind the Camera
As much as I enjoyed the film's atmosphere and overall execution, there are areas where I think THE HOLLOW ONES could have pushed things further.
The story incorporates familiar horror conventions, particularly once the history of the cult begins coming into focus. We've encountered sinister communities, occult rituals and supernatural deception many times before. Potter handles these elements competently, although some of the revelations unfold along fairly predictable lines.
As someone who also works as a film composer, I tend to pay close attention to how filmmakers use music to shape the emotional landscape of a story. I'll sometimes catch myself imagining where I might introduce a musical cue or take a scene in a different direction. It's one of those occupational hazards that comes from spending so much time on both sides of independent filmmaking.
THE HOLLOW ONES has some genuinely beautiful piano passages that complement its melancholy atmosphere, particularly when the story leans into its more emotional moments. I appreciated that restraint. There were still places where I found myself imagining different musical approaches or thoughts of a stronger presence in other places for the score, but that's largely a matter of personal creative preference. The piano work, in particular, deserves recognition for adding tenderness to a story that spends much of its runtime exploring grief and uncertainty.
As far as pacing goes, I think Potter made a smart decision keeping the runtime around 84 minutes. Independent filmmakers sometimes struggle with trimming scenes after investing so much time and effort into producing them. THE HOLLOW ONES occasionally takes its time moving between dramatic developments, but the relatively compact length works in its favor.
The film gives its characters room to breathe while keeping the overall story manageable.
Finding Something Beautiful in the Darkness
For all its supernatural intrigue, THE HOLLOW ONES finds some of its strongest moments when it returns to the simple, painful reality of losing someone you love.
Late in the film, there’s a deeply moving line that really stuck with me, though I won’t share it here to avoid giving too much away. Still, it was beautiful—capturing something Potter clearly understands about grief, a sentiment that resonates far beyond the horror aspects of the story.
When someone dies, our memories of them can become complicated. We hold onto the happy moments, the regrets, the conversations we wish we'd had and the experiences we'll never get to share. I think THE HOLLOW ONES captures some of that emotional struggle particularly well. There's comfort in revisiting the past, and sometimes a temptation to stay there a little longer than we should. Potter takes that very human experience and gives it a supernatural twist, allowing the horror to grow out of something most of us can understand.
The spiritual themes, the relationship between the brothers and the importance of the family they still have all contribute to that emotional foundation.
And for a modest independent horror production, I think that's a meaningful accomplishment.
Final Thoughts
THE HOLLOW ONES is a solid independent supernatural horror film with a surprising amount of emotional sincerity beneath its eerie Halloween setting.
Potter demonstrates a clear understanding of the story he wants to tell, and his attention to the technical aspects of filmmaking helps the production feel cohesive. The cinematography, sound design and performances are consistent strengths, with the young cast providing some of the film's most memorable moments.
The familiar cult-horror elements may leave seasoned genre viewers wanting a few more surprises, but there's a thoughtful story here about childhood grief, family and the dangerous appeal of living in the past.
What I found particularly rewarding was the film's willingness to explore hope and spirituality within that darkness. There's a meaningful emotional foundation beneath the supernatural events, and knowing Potter's personal inspiration gives the movie an additional layer of authenticity.
THE HOLLOW ONES feels very much like a passion project, one that brought a father and his sons together to explore difficult questions about loss through the language of horror.
It's worth a look for fans of atmospheric supernatural horror who appreciate character-driven stories with a little emotional weight behind the scares.
THE HOLLOW ONES (2026) is a production of Bel Giro Films. The 84-minute feature screened at the Zepstone International Film and Music Festival in September 2026 and is scheduled for a public screening at the Kaysville Theatre in Kaysville, Utah, on October 24, followed by a filmmaker Q&A.
The filmmakers are currently pursuing distribution.
Official Website: www.thehollowonesmovie.com
Watch the Trailer:
More Horror reviewed THE HOLLOW ONES from an advance screener. The film's creators supplied additional background for this feature. All critical opinions remain those of the author.
