Hallowed Ground (DVD)

While Hallowed Ground covers no new territory whatsoever (lone girl driving across country breaks down in small town; small town is inhabited by a bloodthirsty religious cult in search of human sacrifices), it's actually saved by deft direction and up-to-snuff acting.

Hallowed Ground, the first full-length feature from helmer David Benullo, stars Rest Stop's Jaimie Alexander as Liz, our titular damsel in distress. Shortly after her beater dies just inside the secluded hamlet of Hope, Liz meets another outsider at the local greasy spoon. The too-talkative tabloid hack, Sarah (Hudson Leike), immediately befriends Liz and convinces her to come along with her in search of the big story — the subject of which is the long-dead (or is he?) Reverend Hathaway, a god-fearing pillar of the community who sacrificed sinners on his farm to keep the crows away from his corn crops — while Liz's car is being fixed.

The two women go the farm alone, and guess what? Somebody dies. Guess who it is? Not Liz. This leaves our heroine perfectly poised for peril, and of course, in a position to kick some pious posterior. No surprises here for sure but as I mentioned, the flick is well-directed and manages to keep the pace up with well-punctuated deaths and murders (it's a farm: pitchforks come in handy! These folks are religious nuts: count on crucifixions! The crows are back: and they have super sharp beaks!).

When it comes to direct-to-disk horror Liz is a fairly textured character and what's more, Alexander does a better than average job in bringing her to life. She's believable as a 20-something with a past (who can load a shotgun, sweet-talk a suspicious priest, kick her way free of a boarded-up room, and find a lost dolly for a little girl… all in the course of a day). Alexander brings to mind a young Adrienne Barbeau, minus the poodle perm and the gravity-defying rack; it'll be interesting to see how her career progresses (hopefully upward and onward from such low-budget fare).

On the downside… the death scenes in Hallowed Ground are indeed fast and furious, but overall they're pretty perfunctory. Also, the use of CGI may have been needed when it came to the winged attacks (Union crows are probably hard to find) but the producers might have wanted to factor a little more into the budget for the special effects. Finally, the paper thin premise starts to wear out its welcome, and so the clichéd climax comes not a moment too soon.

If you like religious-themed mayhem, ghoulish scarecrows, pixelated ravens, or Alexander's abs, then Hallowed Ground is recommended for the price of a rental.

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