Shallow Ground

A deeply flawed plot. I won't recapitulate them here, since many previous commenters have done this quite well. And I did not like the clichéd device of the music building to a (supposed) climax, but then nothing happening in the film. An interesting device the first time it was tried, but filmmakers need to leave that alone. The acting was uneven as well. But it did, surprisingly enough, hold my interest.So it isn't a complete failure. I liked Natalie Avital, and hope she gets more good roles in the future. (Okay I really mean better roles.) The same for Lindsey Stoddart. I suppose that horror film fans should see this movie, and that others should give it a pass.

While preparing to shutdown a sheriff's station in the woods, the deputies Stuart Dempsey (Stan Kirsch) and Laura Russell (Lindsey Stoddart) are surprised by a naked teenager covered in blood and with a hunt knife in his hand. The boy is arrested and Sheriff Jack Sheppard (Timothy V. Murphy) is summoned by his assistant. While investigating the identity of the boy, Jack hopes to solve the disappearance of many people in the area, including his girlfriend. When the identity of the boy is disclosed, the mystery increases.

The beginning of "Shallow Ground" is promising and intriguing, and I recalled the "X-Files" series. Unfortunately, in a certain moment, it seems that director and writer Sheldon Wilson lost the control of his creation and the story goes nowhere, becoming very confused and having an unsatisfactory and disappointing resolution. In the end, there are three plots: the lead one, about the old lady that lost her husband and daughter in the dam, blames everybody and "builds" a new family of her own: the secondary one is about the torment sheriff , that suffers for not having saved the blond girl. The third one is about a drug dealer that was executed in the city. For some unexplained reason, the dead seek revenge, and all the people killed in the woods somehow combines in one gore being. The same happens with the drug dealer. But why so much complication, wouldn't it be easier if the boy had gone directly to the killer's house and stop her crimes the same way the dealer did with the officer that shot him? The last scene is simply an awful hook for a possible sequel. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Terra Rasa" ("Shallow Ground")

Great idea for an opening - a naked teenage boy, covered in blood from head to foot, walks out of the forest holding a big butcher knife - and into the Sheriff's station which is packing up, making ready to leave.

Bad idea - a Sheriff with a heavy Irish brogue, corny dialogue, some truly 'WTF?!' editing, having all the 'good guys' in the film at least 5 minutes behind the audience (in a 'come on, it's obvious!' way), and a final shot that will have people leaving the cinema asking their friends "What on earth was that about?!" The director / DP knows how to do fish-eye shots, slo-mo, reverse-filming, all those bog-standard music-video things (and the lighting was fine) - even the SFX were fine - but the film really falls down on plot, script and editing. The plot, what it is, is revealed too slowly. I'm all for suspense, but not when you waste 45 minutes and leave only the last 45 or so to shoe-horn all the development in. Characters (and red-herrings) are suddenly forgotten / nobody reacts in a normal way / there's no real clue to events (and people) that are revealed later.. And - given the plot, which I'm trying not to reveal - there's way too little explanation of events which we're told are happening elsewhere (and would make what's going on more coherent).

As I say, the final shot - clearly designed to be a 'sting in the tail' (maybe even a hint at a sequel, or events continuing) will instead leave you walking out of the theatre trying to work out why?! / what?! / and, is there any way I can get my money back? (no).

A blood-covered, naked teenage boy walks into a small town sheriff's office. The two deputies on duty think they've got a maniac on their hands. Unfortunately, it's not that simple.

SHALLOW GROUND is a twisted tale of supernatural revenge. There's a serial killer on the prowl, but this is a relatively minor problem.

A huge dam is being constructed, forcing the town into near extinction. Most residents have already left. The remaining skeleton crew find themselves caught up in a battle between the guilty living and the vengeful dead.

This is a low-budget (well under $100k) film that makes good use of its funds. The effects are wickedly well done, and the acting is believable. The wonderful Patty McCormack plays a central role in this flesh-crawler. The "family dinner" scene toward the end is unforgettable.

Recommended for lovers of the disturbing and macabre...

This strange horror offering has a blood-spattered teenage boy showing up at a police station. What happened to him, and how does this event tie in with the murder of a girl the previous year? This off-beat little horror film came out of the blue (for me at least), because prior to seeing it in my local video store, I'd never heard of it. I rented it, and let me say that while it's not the best horror flick I've seen lately, and it certainly does have it's fair share of problems, it's definitely a breath of fresh air from most of the crap released into cinema these days that people call "horror". Considering it's tiny budget, "Shallow Ground" pulls off some pretty impressive stuff. The film is shot on 16mm but looks great visually, I was shocked afterwords when I found out it WASN'T shot on 35mm. The actors were hit and miss but that's to be expected from a film of this caliber. Steve London's score is very good too, nicely dark and foreboding. One of the best aspects of the film though are the great make-up effects by Patrick Magee. There's lots of disgusting-looking corpses and blood, and the death of the Helen (Patricia McCormack) was great. There's almost no CGI used in this film (thank God) and horror fans will most certainly be pleased by the gruesome set pieces on display here.

Still, there's some stuff that didn't work so well too. The plot takes a long time to unfold and really isn't that interesting. The characters were mostly 1-D, and the ending, though cool, makes no sense whatsoever. This is an odd little horror film, certainly not bad but not *quite* great either. Still recommended, though, as it most certainly is unique and well-done.

7/10.