Shadow

The soldier and biker David (Jake Muxworthy) is serving in Iraq and misses biking. He rides his bicycle in Europe heading to Shadow and when he stops in a bar, he meets the beautiful Angeline (Karina Testa). The troublemaker hunters Fred (Ottaviano Blitch) and Buck (Chris Coppola) bother Angeline and David and the bar owner defend her.

When David camps in the woods, the wind carries his tent and Angeline invites him to share her tent with him. On the next morning, they ride their bicycles together and enjoy the wilderness. When Angeline sees that Fred will shot an animal, she cries and he misses his shot. Fred and Buck chase the couple with their truck and the quartet have accidents and need to walk through the woods. Sooner they are captured by a weird man that lives in an isolated house and are tortured in the basement. David manages to escape and helps the hunters to leave the place, but they are hunted down by the freak. When David wakes up, he learns that the reality is worst than his nightmare.

"Shadow" is a creepy version of Adrian Lyne's "Jacob's Ladder", which is inspired in Claude Chabrol's "Alice ou la Dernière Fugue"; later, "The Jacket" used the same storyline again. "Shadow" has a promising beginning but the story is not original – the writer used not only the foregoing idea, but also a rip-off of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or any other sub-product - and the conclusion is very disappointing. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Shadow – Na Escuridão" ("Shadow – In the Darkness")

This was... most certainly indi to say the least haha it was a little all over the place but still had some positives.

Conceptually I found this decently interesting and in a big way was saved from being unredeemable by the twist in the end. Nothing all too interesting happened until about half way through and I think a lot of the beginning filler could have been cut. In all honesty, keeping it as close to its original form, I think it could have been most successful as a 30 minute short.

They had some really neat filming locations and set dressing so props for that. Also main guy and girl did a decent job, the two bad guys... not so much. And the bad bad guy, while he didn't say anything he was super creepy. Honestly, could have done with more of him all around.

You have to have a true appreciation for indi for this one. Also I think the concept could inspire something really interesting to work with. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't recommend.

Saw this at Frightfest in London a few days ago.

Director Federico Zampaglione comes across as a really nice guy, the film seemed like a bit of a labour of love for him (he even got his old dad who helped with the script up on stage for the Q&A which was quite sweet) and he's obviously a real genre fan. That's the good news...

However, on the bad side... the story is horribly confused, the direction is all over the place - but the music isn't too bad (Zampaglione is the singer of an Italian pop-rock band) There are a few fairly gruesome moments, but there's all too much boring, nonsensical build up, with badly drawn characters running around in the woods before the "horror" bits kick in. There's also a good deal of needless mountain biking (a passion of the director) which makes the film feel like someone's switched onto an extreme sports channel for 5 mins before we can get back to the film! As I say, there are moments of promise but as an overall film it just doesn't work. I don't think that Zampaglione is really ready to be writing and helming his own films at this stage... it's a far cry from a 3 minute music promo.

Hopefully for his sake he'll maybe try and work with an outside influence who might be able to give his next project a little bit more focus. In a way you have to salute Zampaglione for making exactly the kind of film he wanted to make - but unfortunately that doesn't make it something that other people will want to watch.

One to avoid.

I found this movie surprisingly amazing! It was a total fluke that we watched this as we settled in to watch a movie way too late and wanted to pick one quickly. To our luck we ended up picking this one based on the cover (Netflix).

Two people alone in the woods anger two crazy hillbillies. Sounds like your typical slasher film right? Half way through the movie they add a little bit of a twist and add some ghosts stalking everyone in the woods. Sounds like a ghost movie now? Well now add in some crazy looking guy that could be the long lost Uncle of the monsters from the movie "The Descent" who is obsessed with the holocaust and Dr. Mengele's human experiments. What do you have now? With all mentioned above it may sound confusing but it isn't when at the end the Directors message packs a hard punch with an incredible twist.

I love when I watched a movie expecting nothing too special and end up watching a great flick like this one. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time in this film, wonderfully made horror film, the type of perfect horror movie that sucks you in.

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When a young soldier leaves for a mountain biking excursion he meets the girl of his dreams as well a group of violent locals who want to see them dead at any cost.

What really attracted me to this film was seeing Fabrizio Bava as assistant director. Bava, as you may guess, is the son of Lamberto Bava and the grandson of Mario Bava. To see a third generation of horror films directed by the Bava clan is quite a treat. Not saying this is a great film (it really is just so-so), but I am still happy to see the tradition continue.

The best part of this film is the villain, a toad-licking Lord Voldemort. He looks as if Doug Jones played Buffalo Bill playing Ingmar Bergman's Death. Throw some Nazi symbolism in there for good measure. A great villain, both creepy and mysterious, not to mention senselessly vicious.

The sad thing is that while the film is alright once it gets going, it just cannot keep the momentum. As always, I cannot talk about spoilers, but I will say the twist and I did not get along. Maybe you will be thrilled. I was let down.