"Shadow People" - - Boo! . . .ring

"Shadow People" wants to be scary so bad. It tries really, really hard and if I reviewed movies on effort alone I'd give this one a solid C+. But I don't.

No, I review movies based on things like plot, entertainment value, intriguing concepts, etc. These can be hard to gauge sometimes I have certain guideposts. One of the guideposts I use for reviewing a movie is how many times I fall asleep during a film

3 times.

To put that in perspective, "Shadow People" is about people who get strangled by ghosts in their sleep. And I fell asleep at 3 separate times while watching it.

This movie is not scary. It is very slow, which can work great for some horror movies, and it is very boring, which never works for any movie. If I don't care what is happening in the current scene, it is very likely that I did not care during the scene before this one, and will continue not to care for the remainder of the movie. Once a movie becomes boring it is just painful to watch. I've seen movies pull out of this death spiral but its is so rare I can't think of an example.

To me, I think to any fan of film, a boring movie is the worst kind. Bad special effects, bad plot, bad acting can all be ignored if the movie is fun to watch.

And honestly, I'd rather be sleeping than writing this review right now.

"Shadow People" is based on "the true phenomena" if by true you also consider "A Nightmare On Elm Street" to be considered based on "the true phenomena."

Wes Craven, the director/creator of "A Nightmare On Elm Street" claims he got the idea for his movie after reading a series of articles in the L.A. Times about Cambodian children dying in their sleep. I never been able to to actually verify that theses articles exist but it's a good story. Wikipedia has an an entry for SUNDS or Sudden Nocturnal Death Syndrome striking kids in Singapore, but that's about all I could find in my brief search.

And let me just say this: This movie is sold to us as a "true story" as in it is intercut with footage supposedly from news casts that really documented the rash of mysterious deaths. This is all fake. When I sit down to watch a movie and I realize ten minutes into it that I'm going to have to do research because the filmmakers think we are all idiots, it pisses me off. "The Bay" looked like a real documentary but it was not. That's fine. But this movie is dedicated in the memory of a fictional character who looks nothing like the guy who it's based on . . . this is hard to explain but you know how in those re-enactment shows how they'll try to get actors resembling the actual person? Key word being "try," because it is difficult to do. But come on, if you are making up the "real" person you can do better than this:

Here is a shot of the news studio where Charlie Crowe is about to announce to the world that Shadow People exist!

Here's what he looks like in "real life."

And what does the newscaster look like in real life?

Guess.

Come on, just take a guess.

Yup, if you said "black man" you are absolutely right. Why would they make such an odd casting choice? Why would you shoot fake archive footage and intercut it with narrative footage and make such a bizarre switch?

"Shadow People" is dull. That's inexcusable. It lies to the audience. This movie is the visual equivalent of a kid swearing up and down he's best friends with Batman.  And worst of all, it's not scary. If you watch all the way through the credits you'll see an image flash on the screen saying "Now You'll See Them Too" which is kind of refreshing because when I do see them, maybe they'll bring a better movie along with them.