The Hallow

 This is a well-made but very goofy Irish horror movie from 2015 that I'd had in my radar for a while because, well, killer faeries. It doesn't quite deliver on that - or rather, it does, but it gives a 'scientific' explanation to rationalize faeries that somehow involves Cordyceps.

 The Hitchens family - Adam (Joseph Mawle), Clare (Bojana Novakovic), their baby Finn (Wren Hardy) and their dog Iggy (Toddy) have moved to the backwoods of Ireland for work: Adam's been contracted by a logging company to... do something that's never really explained, but it seems to involve scientific prep work to help a logging company cut down some ancient woods.

 The locals don't take kindly to his presence, but it's not because he's working for corporations that are exploiting the forests for foreigners - the closest neighbour, Colm (Michael McElhatton), is leaning on them pretty heavily to go away because the woods belong to the hallow - mythical woodland beasties like Banshees or Leprechauns. It's an effective use of outsiders vs. locals social tension, but it never really goes anywhere, especially because it's pretty clear that the residents are never going to be the true menace. Just a bit of empty bluster, and a red herring.
 We're aware that there are monsters in the background, but Adam remains resolutely unconvinced there's anything odd going on, even when black rot chokes out the engine of his car.

 Luckily it's not too long - maybe halfway through - before the faeries hallow come out into the open and lay siege to the Hitchens family home. It's too silly to be scary, and the characters make so many bad decisions that it's hard to root for them; But on the plus side, it's very, very atmospheric, the monsters are good (think zombie Groots), there a couple of pretty out-there visuals and director Corin Hardy keeps things lively.
 It's not a good movie, but it's got plenty of things going for it. 

 The effects are all pretty good - it's not a very gory movie, but there's at least one wince-inducing bit of nastiness and some really neat imagery. The cinematography (by Martijn van Broekjuizen) is outstanding, providing a lot of cool-looking variations on people doing stuff in the dark. All the actors do well by the parts they're given.
 The issue here is the script (by director Corin Hardy and Felipe Marino). The cordyceps angle was not very original even when it came out (The Last of Us had come out two years prior), and to be honest, the way it's used is just as silly as if they had gone with goblins or scary undead faeries. It also tips its hand early by showing some images on a book that predict how things will go later, fails to make the characters compelling and makes them behave like complete idiots several times...
 None of these are necessarily fatal mistakes, but there are enough problems that that they took me out of the movie. It's a shame because the script does do a few things right and hits upon a few cool images and ideas. Oh well.