Awaken the Shadowman (2017)

I'm surprised to see so much dislike because whilst undeniably flawed in some respects, it told a tight, coherent story without overdoing the screams or special effects and maintained an air of mystery through to the open conclusion. The pacing was unhurried and the production high quality. In terms of flaws, some of the acting wasn't quite there, some of the scenes weren't quite there and the final act was fairly predictable. Another 10-15 minutes building on the backstory would have helped to better establish context. That said, for me at least it kept up the interest.

This concept had a ton of potential, it was filmed in a neighborhood I love, centered on a subject close to my heart (recovery from wildfires), and the shadowman concept is hard to f*ck up - but even with all of these positive elements this was an absolute disaster. It's slow, it's shockingly poorly acted, the cinematography was basic and the script was a meandering, dull snooze fest. The filmmakers owe me the $5.99 On Demand rental fee, plus the cost of 90 minutes of my life. Shame on you!

There hasn't been a good horror movie for so long that I thought even a 5 rating would be okay to watch as in general that's what horror genre gets. Boy I was wrong. First the background music was so out of sync, I mean when you are showing scenery, whats the need of dark music? what could you possibly try to achieve there? Two things are very important for a horror movie, lighting and music. If one fails, movie will not be able to recover. This movie fails in both department. Throughout the movie, we have constant dark and depressing. To give viewers a jolt you don't need to go loud, just change from happy or clam tune to dark and depressing and your works done. There are virtually no element of surprise, although few scare tactics do work. Second, Cast looks flat, they have talent but maybe script didn't help them. The male lead cast had tough time in emoting, but again maybe script didn't help him.A bit of frown would have helped him though. No offense to people who were associated with the project and wish them luck for next time.

I can't believe I made it through the whole movie. Their voices never changed tone and their was no emotion. I don't this this was bad acting because I believe they were directed to do that. This was one of the slowest, most boring horror movies I have ever seen. There was only one instant towards the end of the movie that I was actually able to pay attention and that was when the main character guy was talking to the woman that didn't trust the people. I wouldn't even call it a horror movie. It was a total waste of my time.