Day 7: Shadow (2009)

Can a once-prolific blogger who hasn't written 31 posts all year find it in his soul to review 31 previously unseen horror films in 31 days of October? Let's find out...

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I nearly stopped watching this one after five minutes when the protagonist stops into a bar during a biking trip in the mountains and orders a beer. The bartender complies with a hearty "okay" and hands him a generic beer. That's something that would literally never happen in any bar. "Sure, what kind of beer would you like?" or "I'm not a fucking mind-reader!" would be more appropriate responses. Especially since two guys walk in right after him and also order beers...and the bartender gives them different beers! Ugh...fucking lazy!

Sorry, that's just a silly pet peeve of mine when it comes to bar scenes in movies. Like when someone orders a whiskey and the bartender just grabs a random bottle and starts pouring. Doesn't happen. Moving on...

Another odd thing about the film is that it is an Italian production, but everyone is speaking English. And the protagonist is clearly supposed to be American. And his love interest is very French. And the bad guys seem to be Eastern European of some kind. Or Australian. They did a lot of growling, so it was hard to tell. It's just a fucking grab-bag of accents and ethnic groups going on for no apparent reason. Moving on...

An American Iraqi war veteran (clearly fighting in Italy from the look of the flash-backs) goes on a biking trip in the mountains where he meets the love of his life who is also out biking on her own.  They run afoul of some hunters (whom they had already run afoul of back at the bar), and the game is afoot. The game, of course, is being chased around the mountains by homicidal maniacs. I love that game.

Except that they get chased into an area of the mountains where even the bad guy's loyal dog won't go. Because there's something even more sinister than the evil hunters out there. You can tell it's sinister because of all the fog. Oh, the hunters were British and American, by the way. I suck at first impressions. Doesn't matter. They're not the REAL bad guys anyway, if ya dig. Just more fodder for the actual bogeyman. A real creepy-looking skinny dude with a penchant for torture. Yup...looks like this is turning out to be a torture porn flick. Sigh.

Oh, and there's this. The creepy evil dude gets his ya-yas from licking toads.

His interests also include Italian opera, crafting life-sized dioramas using human corpses and watching old filmed footage of war atrocities. He's a keeper, ladies. I read somewhere that this guy, a Swiss singer/dancer (!!!) named Nuot Arquint, spent 5 months preparing for this role. I wonder how many toads he licked during that time. Because he really nailed that scene. 

This film has no redeeming qualities. It cannot be recommended in any way. I want my 77 minutes back, please. Thinking back on it, the bar scene at the beginning was the high point. Gimme a beer...

Verdant Dude rating: 0 out of 5 pumpkins