The Shrine (2010)

While being annoying at times, racist at others, and up its own self-righteousness at other times - this film ended up being mildly decent actually - but only mildly decent mind you. Some of it has been done better elsewhere but some of it is annoyingly fresh and decent. A good reminder of how simple and raw a horror film can be without the need for a bloodbath or CGI monsters. It's all about how a journalist's trip to Poland goes horribly wrong. In actual fact the story should never have gotten off the ground. A young journalist cons her boss into paying for a trip to report on a story. Instead of going to Oregon, as intended, she kind of misappropriates company money and lies in order to go to Poland; her intention is to investigate the disappearance of an American backpacker. Her theory is, writing a great story will make her boss forgive her, but also might get her moved to reporting big stories instead of writing stories on bees. In reality she shouldn't have needed to go, there's police, detectives, investigator - a whole host of other people who should have done the investigating. When the 3 people get to Poland they are treated as outsiders. The Polish people are portrayed as backwards, culturally inept people who practically live a Mormon lifestyle. The American friends actually find this as intimidating as much as they do the language barrier - FFS, did they not expect a language barrier, did they expect they can just wander around anywhere they want without being questioned, wandering into gardens, farm houses, stables, cursed forests - FFS - one of the many reasons they deserved to die! There are no subtitles in the film, which is done on purpose to make the audience feel as detached as the 3 friends, it's easy enough to figure out what's going on though so threat not. Things start going bad. They are hounded by locals, the find a cursed statue in the permanently foggy forest; they bump into religious cult extremists. I don't mind spoiling this film on account of it being pretty obvious - people who see the statue get cursed by an ancient evil and turn into killers. The Religious extremists are actually doing humanity a favour by killing anybody who sees the statue.This gets a 4 from me. It was a decent attempt and would be amazing if this was a final year film student's production. There's lot s of room for improvement though - it had potential and just stayed on the side of not fully using that potential.

So are you, also like me, searching for top quality movies starring lesser known actors lesser known siblings. Then this is the movie for you..We all know that Troll is a great B-movie. Why not watch MST3000 Well this movie has a statue and has a more consistent story line then most Superhero movies? The shrine is best viewed with a glass.. no a bottle of port! And let me assure you a Non-Bobby "Iceman" Drake handling Two girls and one shrine for about 1½ hours is plenty of fun.. If you like me also doesn't have friends. EnjoyBTW. that shrine is muy picante!

Good direction by Jon Knautz (Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer). Awesome cinematography by James Griffith (Masked saint, Air emergency). The imagery of the forest in the fog is especially haunting and the environment of Poland is simply chilling in itself. Fine editing by Matthew Brulotte (Jack Brooks, Chillerama, girl house). I liked the film and found it to be very creepy and suspenseful. The star cast includes Aaron Ashmore (Regression, The Thaw). Cindy Sampson (The Factory, Swamp Devil). Meghan Heffern (Home Sweet Home, Chloe, The Fog). Trevor Matthews (Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, Girl House). The movie is very different from ur regular possession movies. Its brutal, creepy, suspenseful plot with an awesome twist. The forest n the whole village itself looked eerie n isolated. More movies like these shud be made. Its a must watch for horror fans. There is a very creepy scene in the forest.

Argh. I had read good reviews of this film, along the lines of "BETTER THAN IT HAS TO BE" or something, and I couldn't even finish the whole thing. I wish it were this easy to just slide off to Eastern Europe (the whipping boy of the cinematic world seems like) on a moment's notice, rent a car (I kept thinking- uh, doesn't this take a little more PLANNING? Getting an international driver's license- visas- shots- the whole bit) and then just roll up into town (if you want to call a bunch of ramshackle shacks, weird fog and a guy slaughtering a pig a town) investigating a disappearance when they should be investigating....uh, bees?The acting is wooden, and stupid. The protagonist, Carmen, sees visions- which I didn't stick around long enough to get an explanation on- and she is a journalist unhappy with the puff pieces she is enlisted to write. Apparently, she has to write an article on bees, and her boss thinks that's far more interesting than a missing person. Uh huh.So to rebel, she just HAS to go to Alvania (huh?) which is I guess supposed to be a district in Poland? Or more like Pre-Ceascescu Romania by the looks of it- all long-skirted peasants and somehow charmingly dilapidated buildings through which a little girl drifts dressed like in a fairy tale. Uh huh. Go to any small town in Eastern Europe and I will give you a million dollars if you can find little girls dressed like this. They will all be wearing glittery princess tshirts just like kids everywhere. And, you know, I must say, can we leave EE alone already? I mean, hasn't the torture porn "Hostel" type films already beaten this land to death? One would think that if you step east past Turkey you are either in danger of falling into a demonic fairytale or getting raped and tortured for kicks. I'd say more about this film but it isn't worth it. There are so many others worthy of your consideration. This one is just plain poorly made.