A Killer Haunt With Loose Wiring

MOVIE REVIEWS
Hellbilly Hollow
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Genre: Horror
Year Released: 2026
Runtime: 1h 24m
Director: Kevin Wayne
Writer: Bernadette Chapman
Cast: Kurt Deimer, Kevin Wayne, Danny Vinson, Sandra Ellis Lafferty, Megan Alexandrea Weaver, Hallie Shepherd, Trey Miller, Keller Fornes
Where to Watch: in select theaters September 25. 2026

RAVING REVIEW: There’s an advantage to putting a horror movie inside a real haunted attraction: the production doesn’t have to spend much time convincing us that the place has personality. HELLBILLY HOLLOW was filmed at the actual Alabama attraction that gives the movie its name, and that setting is easily one of its best assets. The barns, backwoods paths, carnival contraptions, and deliberately grimy spaces already feel like places where something awful could happen. Director Kevin Wayne understands that and gets plenty out of simply turning the attraction’s machinery against the people wandering through it.

Unfortunately, the movie surrounding that setting never becomes as confident as the setting itself. Bernadette Chapman’s screenplay throws paranormal investigators, local legends, a decades-old tragedy, psychic connections, murderous siblings, thrill-seekers, and supernatural touches into the same night. Yet, few of those pieces get enough attention to become especially compelling. It’s a strange case where a slasher built around an extremely simple hook keeps finding ways to complicate itself. HELLBILLY HOLLOW would probably be stronger if it trusted the nasty simplicity of its location and killers rather than repeatedly adding another thread to explain.

Mabel (Hallie Shepherd) and her paranormal-investigation crew head into the Alabama backwoods hoping to capture something supernatural at a haunted attraction with an unsettling history. That setup initially creates a fun collision between people looking for fake scares, people looking for real ghosts, and people who have no idea they’re walking into something much worse. There’s enough there for an entire movie, especially once Bull (Kurt Deimer) and Tickles (Kevin Wayne) start making it clear that some of the attractions aren’t nearly as staged as customers assume.

Wayne and Deimer are also where HELLBILLY HOLLOW comes closest to establishing an identity separate from the countless backwoods slashers and killer-clown movies that came before it. Tickles is a hulking, childlike presence who rarely needs dialogue, while Bull is much more outwardly conversational and manipulative. Neither character is especially deep, but the contrast gives the pair a workable dynamic. Wayne works best when Tickles can occupy the frame and look dangerous. At the same time, Deimer leans into Bull’s louder personality without pretending he belongs in a subtler movie.

The kills are where the production’s imagination becomes much easier to appreciate. Instead of relying entirely on knives, axes, and the usual slasher tools, HELLBILLY HOLLOW turns carnival games and haunt attractions into elaborate murder devices. A high striker, a twisted whack-a-mole setup, acid darts, and a car dunk become part of the film’s collection of nasty surprises. The practical construction of those sequences gives them weight, and even when the surrounding scene isn’t particularly tense, there’s pleasure in seeing the filmmakers commit to an absurdly specific way of dispatching somebody.

That inventiveness also exposes one of the movie’s biggest frustrations. Every time HELLBILLY HOLLOW finds something distinctive, it seems determined to hurry away from it and get back to story material that isn’t nearly as interesting. The paranormal mythology becomes muddy, character motivations don’t always track cleanly, and several developments in the back half feel more complicated than they need to be. Rather than enriching the world, those additions make the basic chain of events harder to follow than a movie about murderous brothers running a deadly haunt should be.

The cast navigates the material with similar unevenness. Shepherd gives Mabel enough presence to hold the investigation together, and Megan Alexandrea Weaver has some intriguing material as Ally as the film leans harder into the possibility that the supernatural elements may be genuine. Sandra Ellis Lafferty and Danny Vinson add some welcome experience around the edges, but several of the younger performances are noticeably rougher. That inconsistency wouldn’t matter much in a movie operating entirely as splatter comedy. Yet, HELLBILLY HOLLOW periodically asks us to invest in its mythology and relationships with a seriousness the performances can’t always support.

The actual haunt gives the movie real visual texture, especially when production designer Mike Denard’s carnival-style set pieces fold into the existing environment. The decision to favor practical effects during the kills gives the bloodshed a physical quality that suits this kind of throwback horror. The movie looks less assured when it moves away from those constructed elements, particularly during some of the supernatural material. There’s a noticeable difference between scenes built around something physically sitting in front of the camera and scenes that need effects to sell a stranger idea.

Music is another mixed element. Roy Mayorga’s score generally understands the rough, aggressive tone Wayne is after, while the soundtrack also incorporates multiple songs from Deimer. At times, that music gives the movie extra energy, but other moments push so hard it competes with what’s happening rather than strengthening it. HELLBILLY HOLLOW already has plenty fighting for attention, so the busiest musical passages make an already crowded movie feel even busier.

At roughly 84 minutes, there’s no reason this should feel particularly long, yet the second half starts dragging once the movie has shown us the pleasures of its location and its best practical ideas. The problem isn’t a lack of incident; plenty happens. It’s that the film keeps interrupting its most entertaining impulses to service mythology and character turns that never become clear or satisfying enough to justify the detours. Even the closing stretch feels less decisive than the straightforward slasher mechanics that came before it.

HELLBILLY HOLLOW ends up with several things I genuinely liked trapped inside something much shakier. The location is terrific, the practical gore has personality, and the carnival-based kills show exactly how much mileage low-budget horror can get from one good idea and a crew willing to build it physically. Wayne and his team clearly came ready to make a messy, mean little horror movie, and there are stretches where they deliver exactly that.

For horror fans who can forgive confused storytelling in exchange for practical bloodshed and homemade ingenuity, there’s enough here to make the trip through the Hollow worthwhile. I wish the movie had recognized that its simplest elements were also its strongest, because the more complicated it gets, the less interesting it becomes. HELLBILLY HOLLOW doesn’t need more mythology nearly as much as it needs to trust the creepy place and gruesome toys it already has.

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[photo courtesy of BALD MAN FILMS, CONVOKE MEDIA, REGIME MUSIC, ATLAS DISTRIBUTION COMPANY, JINGA FILMS]

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