Shadows

The Shadows (2010)

The movie opens with 5 friends breaking into an old lighthouse. They have just been shipwrecked on the island when their boat was hit by another ship. After getting sorted out and warmed up they start to explore a bit. The lighthouse is long abandoned and they think they are alone on the island until a mysterious woman shows up. Not long after that what appear to be pirate ghosts start banging on the house to take them all away. The rest of the movie is them boarding up the house and trying to stay alive until morning in the hope that the daylight will drive them away and let them make an escape.

I get a lot of independent movies in the mail to review for the site. Many of them are either slasher or zombie movies. So when I got the chance to check out an independent ghost movie I was very interested. Unfortunately The Shadows falls into one big trap that many independent movies do. The different between an okay independent movie and a really cool one normally is whether the story is bringing something different or new to the genre. The plot of The Shadows is something that I’ve seen many times before. I looked at the lovely Mrs. Gutmunchers 5 minutes into the movie and told her what the big reveal and story was going to be. And sure enough I was correct. Now I’m not going to ruin the surprise or twist of the movie because it might work for some of you guys. But I think that most of us who have seen ghost movies over the last 5 or 6 years are going to see it right away.

Oh and it just isn’t the twist that bugged me. The pacing of the movie leaves a bit to be desired. Early on there are far too many scenes of the characters just sitting around talking about the boat and what happened. I was bored all through this part of the movie and found myself watching the clock. Even after the stuff starts to happen I was still disappointed. This is a ghost story that just isn’t scary or even creepy. When I sit down to watch a movie like The Shadows I want to be made uncomfortable and maybe even freaked out a bit. This movie just doesn’t deliver the goods.

Now of course I’ve really been hard on the movie up to this point. But there are some things that I did enjoy. First of all the acting is very well done for an independent movie. The characters are confused and scared during much of the runtime and the actors do sell that really well. This was a huge difference for me because with the other things that I didn’t enjoy about the plot if I wasn’t at least interested a bit in the characters as performed by the cast it would have made this a miserable experience. I’m also one of those guys that can get into how a movie is shot. I was interested and enjoyed the camera work and lighting. Whoever was in charge of the visual style of the movie has a great eye. I loved how they light the sets and actors. The little bit of atmosphere that The Shadows manages to create is purely from the camera work.

In the end I’ve seen much worse movies in my time reviewing movies. In my opinion you have a talented group of filmmakers and actors that were undermined by what I consider to be a poorly written and worse yet derivative script. What I find exciting is that these are normally the kinds of filmmakers that “bounce” back with an even better movie. The Shadows might be interesting to watch once, but I can’t see ever revisiting it again. Though I’ll be keeping my eyes open on what this group does next. To check out more about the movie head over to http://www.theshadowsfilm.com/

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer