Directed by Francesco Giannini, Hall, which has screened at part of this year’s Arrow Video FrightFest, hits a little close to home. The story is set during the beginning of what sounds like a pandemic. We hear early on via radio story that there has been a death toll of 6,000 people so far; the illness itself is described as having flu-like symptoms. All sounds very familiar doesn’t it? And yet Giannini, whom also serves as writer, actually wrote the script and shot the film way before Covid-19 hit the world. The oddly prophetic nature of the story is at times uncomfortable, but luckily there are enough points of difference within the film to ease the nerves.
In the middle of a road trip, family unit, Val (Carolina Bartczak), Branden (Mark Gibson), and daughter Kelly (Bailey Thain), stop off at a fancy hotel for the night. Here they encounter Naomi (Yumiko Shaku), a heavily pregnant woman staying at the hotel whilst on a work trip. What none of them know is that the hotel has been targeted by a sinister man as a test site for a deadly virus. As the disease takes hold of the hotel guests, Val and the others find themselves in a battle to survive. Their only salvation lies in making it to the end of their hallway.
Hall is a film built on high stakes. There’s the need to escape the virus, which sees the nerves sky-rocket, but the film also deals with other aspects of escape. It is revealed early on that Naomi has left the father of her unborn child due to him being a bad man. Exactly in what way he is bad, is never fully disclosed, but it must be pretty extreme as she is running away from everyone and everything she knows. On the other side of the hall is Val, a victim of domestic abuse at the hands of her husband. She is also looking for a better life for her and her daughter, and is hopeful for an opportunity to flee at some point during the trip that they are on. The virus offers her the perfect chance, but having a corridor full of sick people makes the prospect of escape seem impossible. All these elements contribute to adding layer upon layer of nerve-shredding tension. The scenes in which Val first attempts to leave will have you gnawing your fingernails right down.
In order to generate maximum tension, and sense of dread and atmosphere, Giannini keeps his world small, limited almost exclusively to two hotel rooms and the hallway that they share. By keeping everything tight and enclosed, he generates an intense atmosphere from which the characters must escape. The decision is also cleverly made to tell the story across two different times – before the infestation and since the exposure. This choice allows the film to achieve a nice steady pace, with no overly drawn out instances of exposition, but similarly not spending too much time in any given instance on the devastation the attack wrought. Put simply, it prevents the story from stagnating and allows what is essentially a rather basic plot to take on the appearance of something much more intricate.
A claustrophobic and story of isolation both physically and psychologically, Hall will no doubt be viewed differently to how it may have been intended originally. This is not a bad thing though as we could all do with a heavy dose of ‘it could be worse’, and this offers that in spades.
Hall was reviewed at Arrow Video FrightFest 2020.
Hall
Summary
Domestic abuse and superbugs collide in Hall, an atmospheric high stakes tale of two women trying escape, not only a deadly virus, but the men that control them too.
