Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Hollow’, A Netflix Animated Series About Three Teens Trying To Escape Weird Worlds

One of the great things about streaming services is the variation of kids’ shows on the different services. For pre-teens, there’s much more than just watching episodes of Fuller House. A good example is The Hollow on Netflix. Is it spooky enough for your tweens?

THE HOLLOW: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We pan back from an old-timey typewriter, and we see a teenager unconscious on the floor of a cinder-block cell. He wakes up with a start, and sees that two other teens are are also lying unconscious on the floor.

The Gist: The teens wake up and have no idea who the others are. We just know that the first one to wake up, Adam (Adrian Petriw) is in control and wants to figure out how to get out. The second to wake up, Mira (Ashleigh Ball), is tough and can take care of herself. The third, Kai (Connor Parnall), is more in the skittish, funny, Shaggy-esque vein. All three of them, though, have no idea what their names are; they find pieces of paper with their names in their pockets.

Even though the three of them have no reason to trust each other, they band together to figure out how to get out of the cell — it has to do with the typewriter. Then they use their wits to climb to the surface, out a hatch in the middle of the woods.

But what’s out there? An electric fence, a mysterious shack full of WWII-era equipment, and three broken cages. What we find out along the way is that Adam has strength and agility to match his determination, Mira is an empath when it comes to animals, and Kai can get a shock and not even get a burn on his hands.

When they finally figure out how to escape past the fence, they’re chased by three scary-looking “devil dogs”. A mysterious figure (Mark Hildreth) appears and helps them escape — but for a price. He even makes them say “the magic word.” But when they wake up, they’re in as much danger as they were before.

Our Take: Maybe we were just tired of watching cartoon animals talk to presschoolers about friendship, but something about The Hollow intrigued us. Maybe it was the cool animation, maybe it was the mysterious story. Our instincts were right; unlike many tween/teen shows, the plot of The Hollow, written by Vito Viscomi (Nerds and Monsters) is one that adults can watch and get into.

It’s good that the show starts off on the right foot: no explanations or exposition. The teens know just as much about what’s going on as the viewer does — they don’t even know their names! And, while they try try to figure out who they are, what their abilities are, and where their home is, having them battle weird creatures, deal with the “Weird Guy” and other frenemies, and also figure out how to get along with each other will prod kids to binge the entire season.

We’re especially happy to see Mira, who’s drawn to be Asian-American, and who doesn’t want help from either of the boys. Why does it seem to be that kids’ shows have stronger female characters than adult shows these days?

What Age Group Is This For?: The show is rated TV-Y7-FV (for Fantasy Violence), but we’re thinking that this is more suitable for kids 10 and up. You know, those who may think Stranger Things was cool but just a bit too scary for them.

Parting Shot: After the Weird Guy transports the teens out of the woods, we see Adam waking up in the desert, with huge bull-like creatures speaking a foreign language standing over him. He closes his eyes again.

Scariest Moment: Those devil dogs are pretty darn scary.

Our Call: Stream It. The Hollow is something that you and your pre-teens and teens can watch together, which is a rarity on TV these days.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch The Hollow on Netflix