DVD review: Shelter

A psychiatrist who doesn’t believe in the existence of multiple personality disorder investigates an incredible case.

Julianne Moore is certainly a gifted actress, with a positively enormous acting range, and she almost manages to sell this movie.

The hook is original but it deviates too soon into supernatural territory making the rational, skeptic psychiatrist look really stupid. The “Maybe there is a scientific explanation” angle is legitimate, and probably it would have been much more interesting, but when obviously supernatural stuff start happening and we, the viewers, know it, watching a character that should be smart wander aimlessly trough the plot is aggrieving.

The resolution, in a bid to be original, is incredibly contrived and bizarre. Certainly watchable stuff but nonetheless baffling.

Moore does her angsty best but even that doesn’t manage to elevate the material, quite the opposite actually, because after a while she becomes grating and annoying. There’s only so much motherly wailing that we can tolerate on screen. Actually the mother trying to save her child is so incredibly common in horror movies lately…

John Rhys Meyer as the cursed patient does its best to be unsettling but really, there’s a point where the suspension of disbelief simply stop working and his character is really too much out there that in the end it accrues to little more than a collection of tics, menacing eyes and cringe inducing neck movements.

The direction is competent and strikes all the required points for a spooky film. The locations are nicely haunted, the scares are effective… maybe with a coherent plot this would have been a recommended viewing but as it stands it’s a professional vehicle for random ominous stuff, a well cooked roast with third quality meat.