BoardChiri
Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
CrawlerChunky
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Dirtylogy
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
edwardtoyebo
Most of today's horror films are tepid at best. Originality is hard to come by. Picked this one out on Netflix, hoping for the best. Got way more than expected. The Shrine is highly recommended.A determined journalist, her boyfriend and a young intern travel to Europe in search of a story involving tourist's who, over a period of years, disappear under similar circumstances. A journal written by the latest missing tourist leads the trio to a small Polish village that harbors a fog enshrouded secret. The village inhabitants will go to deadly means to keep the secret hidden from outsiders. What follows as the trio unknowingly fall prey to their journalistic instincts will have you on the edge of your seat.This is one smart, well paced and intriguing piece of horror. The characters are full dimensional. The plot unfolds at a crisp and believable pace. Rarely does this one resort to jump scares. The horror comes from a sense of ever building dread. Lighting is key to unnerving the senses. The violence and bloodshed on display never panders to the gore hounds. After viewing this one, I took a few moments and pondered what I would have done differently had I found myself in similar circumstances. So few of today's horror films generate that type of reaction. When I plan a European vacation, I will avoid Polish villages out in the woods at all cost's.
MoviesRT
I was expecting another typically bad horror movie, but this one really worked.Most horror today is so bad you are rooting for the monster to kill the actors because you hate them so much. This one was able to make you care about the main characters and that made it worth staying to the end.I admit I was fooled by how things took an abrupt turn near the end.What surprised me were the many hateful reviews this got. I'm usually the one telling everyone how terrible a horror movie is, so I was confused by the number of reviews that just hated this movie. Did the director and writer rub a few people the wrong way?Anyway, I think it is well worth watching.
nighthouse66-1
Argh. I had read good reviews of this film, along the lines of "BETTER THAN IT HAS TO BE" or something, and I couldn't even finish the whole thing. I wish it were this easy to just slide off to Eastern Europe (the whipping boy of the cinematic world seems like) on a moment's notice, rent a car (I kept thinking- uh, doesn't this take a little more PLANNING? Getting an international driver's license- visas- shots- the whole bit) and then just roll up into town (if you want to call a bunch of ramshackle shacks, weird fog and a guy slaughtering a pig a town) investigating a disappearance when they should be investigating....uh, bees?The acting is wooden, and stupid. The protagonist, Carmen, sees visions- which I didn't stick around long enough to get an explanation on- and she is a journalist unhappy with the puff pieces she is enlisted to write. Apparently, she has to write an article on bees, and her boss thinks that's far more interesting than a missing person. Uh huh.So to rebel, she just HAS to go to Alvania (huh?) which is I guess supposed to be a district in Poland? Or more like Pre-Ceascescu Romania by the looks of it- all long-skirted peasants and somehow charmingly dilapidated buildings through which a little girl drifts dressed like in a fairy tale. Uh huh. Go to any small town in Eastern Europe and I will give you a million dollars if you can find little girls dressed like this. They will all be wearing glittery princess tshirts just like kids everywhere. And, you know, I must say, can we leave EE alone already? I mean, hasn't the torture porn "Hostel" type films already beaten this land to death? One would think that if you step east past Turkey you are either in danger of falling into a demonic fairytale or getting raped and tortured for kicks. I'd say more about this film but it isn't worth it. There are so many others worthy of your consideration. This one is just plain poorly made.
rake-linggar
The story had some mystery, good plot, and of course, the scare and chill you would want see from a horror movie. It certainly was not the kind of movie that just mindlessly rip and tear someone's inside. This was the kind of movie that made you curious about what is going on, about the origin of the evil that is plaguing the village. It certainly gave me the kind of scary atmosphere that enjoy from a horror movie.Unfortunately, the reason I didn't give a higher rating for this movie is because many scenes contains polish scripts which kind of makes you care less about what is currently going on in the story. But, don't worry. In the end, they made the entire story quite clear and made those dialogues feel less important to know.
