Paramedic Maddie and her husband Frank are jolted awake by a smoke alarm as their eighteen‑year‑old daughter Alice calls in panic: after storming off in Frank’s car, she has struck a girl on remote Hallow Road. While Maddie and Frank race to reach her, Alice claims she called an ambulance, and Maddie coaches her through CPR—until Alice, terrified, insists she has crushed the girl’s chest. Frank urges her to abandon the body and get back in the car.
During the call, Alice admits she is high on MDMA, never returned to her boyfriend Jakob’s flat as her parents assumed, and never actually called emergency services. The family’s fraught argument reveals the source of their earlier fight: Alice’s pregnancy and her parents’ pressure to end it. Frank vows to take the blame when they arrive.
Alice then reports another car approaching. At Frank’s urging, she drags the body into the undergrowth—only to panic that the girl’s face is “changing.” A strange woman appears, claiming she and her husband are out driving and offering help. Her tone shifts from gentle to intrusive and threatening as she refuses to leave Alice alone.
When Alice tries to flee, Maddie and Frank hear the woman smash the quarter glass of the car. The woman insists the girl Alice hit is alive and with her husband, and pressures the family for explanations. Frank confesses he planned to take responsibility, which seems to satisfy her. Maddie, shaken, admits she recently quit her paramedic job after misdiagnosing a fatal pulmonary embolism. Alice decides she will own up to her actions.
When Maddie and Frank finally reach Hallow Road, Alice and the couple are gone. A body lies in the brush. Frank examines it and returns with the devastating claim that it is Alice. Maddie refuses to accept it and calls Alice’s phone—only for Alice to answer, sounding kidnapped. The woman taunts them, declaring that she and her husband “correct” girls like Alice and will do the same to her unborn child. The call ends as police block the road.
By morning, officers treat the corpse—apparently Alice—as the victim of a hit‑and‑run. Detectives conclude that Maddie and Frank’s belief they spoke to Alice afterward is a trauma‑induced delusion, leaving the couple silent and shattered.
The film is directed by Babak Anvari from a script by William Gillies. Ian Henry of London Film & TV and Lucan Toh of Two & Two Pictures produced alongside Richard Bolger of Hail Mary Pictures, with funding from IPR.VC, XYZ Films and Screen Ireland.[4][5]
Casting
Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys were cast as the married couple at the centre of the story with Megan McDonnell as their daughter. Paul Tylak plays a police officer.[6]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2025)
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 89% of 54 critics' reviews are positive.The website's consensus reads: "Minimalist in presentation while getting great mileage out of Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys' superb performances, Hallow Road is a nerve-wracking thriller that takes audiences down a haunting path."[10]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 69 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[11]
In December 2025, the screenplay by William Gillies was included in the best of the year by Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian.[12]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
