The Shrine

A couple of American journalists go to a small Eastern European village to investigate the mysterious death of a colleague.

Initially it seems like this might be another "Hostel" torture/gore type flick, but things are not what they appear in the first two-thirds of the movie. The director of Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer helmed this, and he has a good grasp of the genre.

What I liked was the straightforward plot device that is revealed at the conclusion. Pay close attention to what happens around the 32 minute mark because that's the basis for everything that follows.

The movie is fairly low budget, so don't go in looking for fantastic special effects, but they are serviceable. Also, this is not a keep-you-up-at-night type horror movie. It's more so the type that makes you think "What would I have done differently" to avoid what happened to these ppl.

An excellent premis for a movie, but the execution was terribly average. The dialogue and acting was sub-par in most cases, but the visual effects and set design balanced that out a little. The movie fell apart in the third act, in which it resembles more of an exorcism movie rather than a horror movie centred around a Polish cult.

A decent one to chuck on with a beer and a couple of bongs. The ritual scenes were particularly fun and interesting to watch.

TLDR: Some scenes were fun, but overall an average movie. 5/10

The Shrine has a very intriguing story, with some great twists, but the acting in this movie was less than decent. 5/10

The story of The Shrine is not completely new, but it was different from most recent horror movies. The plot can be predictable here and there, but overall it is very refreshing and will keep you exciting for whats coming next.

Unfortunately this movie really proved that bad acting can ruin a good movie experience. I believe that with a few tweaks and a complete recasting this movie could have been amazing, but quite frankly it felt like Aaron Ashmore was the only actor in this movie who managed to deliver a half believable performance. Most of the dialog was stale and generally just felt like they were rehearsing their lines for the first time.

On another note, the pace of this movie was very satisfying throughout most of it. the beginning felt pretty slow, but honestly it would not have been a problem if the main characters had been more likable and properly portrayed. As we head further into the movie, the pace quickly speeds up, and with the unsubtitled polish dialog, it can be easy to miss something. This is not such a bad thing in my opinion, as it is a long story with several twist that requires a thoroughly fast pace to be shown in the time of a single film.

Why should you watch this movie? If you have had enough of the usual paranormal activity-like horror movies that has been released the last couple of years, i promise you this will be a refreshing experience. The story is imaginative, and somewhat unpredictable, you are kept unaware of who the actual hostile entity is until the very end. All in all the story of this movie really impressed me, this story will make you remember this movie far longer than you will remember most recent cheesy horror movies. However a warning is due. If good acting is important to you, this movie might be painful to watch.

Helix' Horrible Reviews

Yes, the script is kinda cheesy. Yes, the actors are blandly pretty. Yes, the characters do annoyingly dumb things in the woods. But there are some pretty decent aspects to "The Shrine" that make it worth the 90-odd minutes out of your life time to watch it.

First of all, it's not as entirely stupid as 99.9999% of horror movies currently in release. Early on there are some sequences which are, though derivative of J-horror, at least nicely scary. There's a very well done mid-movie change up and an ending that actually doesn't make you want to throw up your hands in disgust.

Faint praise, I know. But compared to the brain dead gore porn masquerading as horror films these days, this film's attempt to generate some real scares seems almost revolutionary by comparison. "The Shrine" is, at the very least, a pretty fair port in a storm of Hollywood crap.

More intelligent than many horror films. Yes it is a horror film, but it is not all gore and guts. Note that it does not fall into the other end of the spectrum as just a thriller either (there is some blood). It is an original, well done production that strikes me as unlike most of the horror of 2010.

The strong points would be better acting than many films of the genre, characters that are smarter than most horror movie characters (they still do some stupid things, but they don't know they are in a horror movie), and some nice creepy effects.

If you watch it then be aware that when people are not speaking English and there are no subtitles this is intentional. There is nothing wrong with the version you are watching. Hang in there. Context will tell you what you need to know.