10 Recent Horror Films You Need To Stop Sleeping On

Another low budget bottle movie that proves you don’t need more than a vivid storyteller and a few sounds effects to turn your blood to ice, Babak Anvari’s Hallow Road awakens middle class paramedic Maddie and her husband Frank (Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys) to a call from their daughter Alice (Megan McDonnell) telling them she has run over a girl in the woods.

The next eighty minutes are spent in the car with Maddie and Frank as they race towards Alice, trying to keep her calm, talking her through CPR, and doing their best to save her from two strangers who stop to help.

As there’s no blood to spray or dark corners for killers to hide in, sound design and pacing are everything in Hallow Road. With the camera capturing Maddie and Frank’s every emotion, from shock through bargaining and devastation, we are forced to live their journey in rich detail, hearing the dead girl’s chest cavity collapsing under CPR, Alice progressively breaking down over the course of their phonecalls, and the struggle against the couple who turn sinister in just a few short exchanges.

Despite the relatively brief runtime, by the conclusion you’ll realise you’ve not taken a deep breath for the duration, and the warm light of day thereafter won’t be able to shake the deep, goosebumps-inspiring terror - but that’s the point.