Line #20 Film/TheFactsInTheCaseOfMisterHollow


1	[[quoteright:226:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thefactsinthecaseofmisterhollow_4733.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:226:Look Closely...]]
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4	A short film, written and directed by Rodrigo Gudiño, and starring Creator/JulianRichings, Alan Alderton and Lea Lawrynowicz.
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6	In 1933, Johnny Hollow took a photograph of a woman holding a child and three men at a campsite. However, the camera pans around the photograph to reveal that things are not quite right. What is that weird symbol on everybody's wrist? What are they going to burn in that fire? As the movie progresses, the photograph changes, getting progressively more unsettling. Watch all six minutes of it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzw8qdXCep8 here]].
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9	!! This film provides examples of:
10	* AmbiguousEnding: [[spoiler: The movie ends with the goddess of evil Keres taking off her hood. Is this merely the deduction of the investigator, concluding the ritual summoned her? Or has the creature [[PortalPicture emerged from the picture itself]] to attack the investigator? What happened to the priests or the baby? Nobody can tell.]]
11	* BadassPreacher: The Young Priest aiming a shotgun, who, along with an Old Priest who appears to be blessing his action, is revealed to be hidden behind the trees, out of the sightline of the cultists.
12	* TheCaseOf: "Mister (Johnny) Hollow" the photographer who has sent a mysterious photo of four figures at a campsite to an OccultDetective investigating paganism in Ontario, Canada.
13	* ConspiracyPlacement: Batwinged Caduceus are tattooed prominently on the wrists of the men, as well as embossed on a leatherbound book on the investigator's desk, marking these men as members of the cult.
14	* CreepyChangingPainting: The campsite photo first appears simply examined in detail, then the camera zooms in to a degree and angle impossible to achieve if the photograph remains two-dimensional, craning to reveal the reflection in a car's sideview mirror as though the viewer had stepped ''inside'' the photo rather than looked ''at'' it. From that point onward, elements change through the course of various dizzying zooms, with facial expressions altered, limbs positioned differently and other figures revealed in reflected surfaces and hidden behind trees.
15	* DemonicPossession: [[spoiler: The ending implies Keres is in the process of posessing the leather jacket cultist and maybe the investigator.]]
16	* DontGoInTheWoods: The woods of northern Ontario are where a SecretCircleOfSecrets[=/=]MysteryCult get up to the dirty business of worshipping ancient death-goddesses, and its heavily implied that HumanSacrifice is a part of that worship.
17	* GodOfEvil: The MysteryCult worships the Keres, understood to be evil Greco-Roman goddesses in the film. Though not detailed in the film itself, in Myth/ClassicalMythology they are the ''daimones'' (AnthropomorphicPersonifications) of violent, painful ''death,'' and serve as particularly nasty {{Psychopomp}}s who thirst for human blood.
18	* TheGreatDepression: Set in the fall of 1933, as an OccultDetective of the period investigates a {{Spooky Photograph\|s}} that may contain evidence of a cult operating in Ontario.
19	* HeroOfAnotherStory: The identity, motivation and backstory of the shotgun-wielding preachers is left unexplained. [[spoiler: It's also left open whether they succeed or not in stopping the ritual]]
20	* HillbillyHorrors: involves the investigation of a MysteryCult in the woods of northern Ontario, and a [[DontGoInTheWoods camping trip]] that may have gone very, very wrong.
21	* HumanSacrifice: Heavily {{Implied\|Trope}} to be practiced by the MysteryCult, and almost certainly the intended fate of [[spoiler: the infant in the photo.]]
22	* LiteraryAllusionTitle: Though it only has a short form and the ParanormalInvestigation horror subgenre in common, the film's title is modeled after Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's FictionalDocument short story "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar."
23	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Considering that the subject of the photo is a SecretCircleOfSecrets, and its observer an OccultDetective, it's left rather ambiguous as to whether the elements of the photo that visibly ''[[CreepyChangingPainting change]]'' or manifest detail beyond what the eye could see are symbolic of the investigator's gradual epiphany as they tie events together and notice new details, a GlamourFailure on the part of the cultists, indicators of a potentially lethal PortalPicture, or some combination of all three.
24	* MysteryCult: {{Implied\|Trope}}, the "Paganism" practiced revolves around a secret Greco-Roman religion, with its practitioners having spread as far as northern Ontario.
25	* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: Johnny Hollow, the eponymous photographer who sent the campsite photo, is named after the DarkWave [[Music/JohnnyHollow electronic group]] who's song "Alchemy" provides the film's soundtrack. (It's co-director, Vincent Marcone, is a member.) The short was initially conceived as a music video before developing into a more fully-plotted short film.
26	* OccultDetective: The unseen viewpoint character who is the recipient of Mister Hollow's photo, actively investigating paganism in Ontario.
27	* ParanormalInvestigation: An unseen investigator researches a MysteryCult that worships Greco-Roman death-goddesses, exploring whether the cult and its gods are real.
28	* PenName[=/=]SueDonym: Careful examination of the OccultDetective's other documents reveals that Johnny Hollow is an alias adopted by Johnathon H. Ollow, a writer for ''The Greater Toronto Gazette.''
29	* PhotosLie: PlayedForDrama as the premise of the film. The photo seems relatively innocuous until the camera progresses from showing particular details to showing things no viewer could see with the naked eye. (The contents of a sideview mirror's reflection at an angle not seen in the photo, the presence of figures obscured ''behind'' the trees.) Eventually, elements of the photo begin to change outright, suggesting that the investigator who's researching the photo is beginning to piece together a narrative about the more sinister context in which the photo was taken, as well as hinting that [[spoiler: the photo itself may be possessed.]]
30	* PsychologicalHorror: An OccultDetective investigating a MysteryCult has to slowly piece together the larger, sinister context in which a {{Spooky Photograph\|s}} was taken, communicated by small details present in the photo itself, building to a conclusion that is either symbolic of the investigator's epiphany, or an explicit paranormal manifestation.
31	* ReligiousHorror: The film follows the examination of a photo containing possible evidence of a Greco-Roman cult in Northern Ontario, connected with the disappearances of over one-hundred children. Though not Satanic in nature, the cult is explicitly presented as anti-Christian.
32	* SacredScripture: From the {{pan}} over various case-related {{Fictional Document}}s, the viewer can see that the film's OccultDetective has managed to secure a copy of the MysteryCult's holy book, with its telltale batwinged Caduceus embossed on the leather.
33	* SanitySlippage: On the part of Johnny Hollow, if the random mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters (and zeroes standing in for some instances of the letter O) in the typewritten covering letter is any indication.
34	* ScrapbookStory: Presented as a collection of case documents, but mostly a long examination of one particular photo of four figures at a campsite.
35	* SecondaryCharacterTitle: Johnny Hollow is unseen, as the photographer who took the photo that's the subject of the film. His only "appearance" is via the text of a letter, warning the recipient, an OccultDetective viewpoint character, to "look closely."
36	* SecretCircleOfSecrets: The "paganism" of the film is presented piecemeal, via newspaper articles, letters, reference materials and the photo, and the viewer is meant to infer that the Keres-worshippers are hard-to-track and have been operating in secret for quite some time.
37	* SecretSocietyGroupPicture: The OccultDetective and his eponymous source correctly presume Hollow's {{Spooky Photograph\|s}} depicts a MysteryCult operating in Ontario, but the atypically rustic environs, the jocularity of some of the figures, and several odd details heavily hint not only at its membership, but also its typical practices and methods of worship, including HumanSacrifice.
38	* SlasherSmile: The face of the The cultist with the matchstick gradually morphs into one.
39	* SpookyPhotographs: Johnny Hollow's photo of the four figures and a baby at a campsite, all involved in a MysteryCult, becomes progressively spookier, first showing a body that should be invisible to the viewer, then combining this with subtly [[CreepyChangingPainting changing]] expressions and limb position so that time seems to be passing in the photo, until explicitly paranormal elements are introduced, culminating with a demonic presence seemingly moving directly towards the viewer.
40	* WhisperingGhosts: Unintelligible whispering and echoing voices mumble and susserate over the opening credits and through a {{pan}} over several {{Fictional Document}}s until settling on a photo, fading out when the opening notes of the soundtrack play. The whispering begins again during the closing credits.
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Context Film / TheFactsInTheCaseOfMisterHollow