Tuesday 25 October 2011

Shelter

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Year:2010
Country of origin:USA
Director:Måns Mårlind, Björn Stein
Genre:Spooky psych horror.
Starring:Julianne Moore, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Jeffrey DeMunn
Rating:3/5
IMDB link:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179069/
Tagline:No tagline
Favourite line:"He's coming….The Devil."

Spooky psychological horror is what we have here.

The ever engaging Julianne Moore plays Dr. Cara Jessup, psychologist and daughter of fellow psychologist Dr. Harding who likes to test her abilities by introducing her to interesting or challenging cases. We join the story as Cara is summoned to meet David, a shy, sensitive, wheelchair bound man with emotional difficulties. After initial questioning, Cara determines that he is not the reason her father called her in and, sure enough, from behind a one way mirror, he places a call to David and asks to speak to Adam. The man is transformed via a violent spasm of neck and shoulders into Adam; rude, aggressive, borderline psychotic.
And he can walk.
So begins a journey that will take in mountain witchcraft passed on through generations, seeping sores on people's backs and a threat to Cara's own family's lives.

Whilst at no point does this truly lift off, it is engaging enough, though does lose its way somewhat during the mountain scenes.
As mentioned, Moore is great in the lead, exuding just the right balance of professional confidence and female vulnerability and it's good to see a woman of her age being given a meaty role to tackle (not to mention the obvious MILF factor at work, though I'm not one crass enough to mention it).
Coming across as the bastard child of The Ring and a mid-period X Files episode this is good, if unremarkable fare.

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