O Altar

I wasn't expecting much when I sat down to watch "The Shrine". The premise looked all too familiar in a sea of excruciatingly bad horror titles. The opening scenes did little to quash my suspicions, however, I decided to stick it out and go for broke. I'm actually really glad I did.

There is very little contrived material here. The film sets up it's story and moves forward convincingly. While some of the dialog tends to border on silliness, a rather strong cast is able to deliver it in a believable fashion, which, along with the top notch cinematography, sets "The Shrine" apart from it's contemporaries. Yes, the Polish accents were brutal, as were the ceremonial robes, however the suspenseful scene direction more then makes up for it. It's one of those films, where as, you don't really care all that much about the characters, but you really dig what the film is doing with them. It's easy entertainment, and sometimes that's all it takes.

No, this is not a film that is destined for cult status or a franchise tag, but it is an enjoyable little horror film that reminds us of why we love this genre… Because it's fun.

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

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.

I'll get this right out of the way - this movie didn't grab me at first. The first act has some problems with dialogue delivery and generally unlikeable characters.. but I gave the film time, and it really started to win me over. Some out-of-place CG fog notwithstanding, this is a very fun effort from the JACK BROOKS MONSTER SLAYER team (though I like Jack Brooks more). Partway through I started to care about everyone more, and by the end the film totally won me over. The last act is a ton of gory fun, feeling like a hybrid of The Exorcist, Rec 2 and The Evil Dead. Great practical make-up work. See this, I fully recommend.

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.