Shallow Ground (2004) User Reviews

Tries to hard to be scary and will put you to sleep

[eched · 4/10 · 21 August 2005]

Well, this movie put me to sleep so I only saw half of it, but I wasn't impressed by what I saw.

The flaw with this film is one you would not expect from a horror film. It tries to hard to be scary. Let me explain. Okay, opening scene, cue the over the top cheesy (this is meant to be creepy?) score, have all these quick cuts of blood and our horror icon walking around with a knife. Already the film is trying to scare the audience, but nothing scary has happened yet so you just sit there scratching your head wondering why you should be afraid. Then the rest of the film is just this same scene over and over again. No character development, no real plot development, just constant scenes that are meant to be scary, but can't pull it off because you just don't care about the characters, or the film for the matter.

The bad guy has a nice, original, and creepy look to him, but he is misused. You just see him to darn much. He literally is in every single scene in the film. Because he's in the film so darn much and he really doesn't have that much to him, you get sick of him really darn fast, and that's pretty sad seeing as how he's the only okay thing in there.

And well, there's nothing else to say. All the film is, is just the scary guy running around with a knife and that's it. This got me sleeping in ten minutes because there was so little to it.

Not as good as it's said to be. You want to see a good and smart scary movie go with The Locals or The Last Horror Movie.

Don't waste your time with this. 4 out of 10.

A bloody mess

[tenten76 · 6/10 · 30 May 2005]

Great idea for an opening - a naked teenage boy, covered in blood from head to foot, walks out of the forest holding a big butcher knife - and into the Sheriff's station which is packing up, making ready to leave.

Bad idea - a Sheriff with a heavy Irish brogue, corny dialogue, some truly 'WTF?!' editing, having all the 'good guys' in the film at least 5 minutes behind the audience (in a 'come on, it's obvious!' way), and a final shot that will have people leaving the cinema asking their friends "What on earth was that about?!" The director / DP knows how to do fish-eye shots, slo-mo, reverse-filming, all those bog-standard music-video things (and the lighting was fine) - even the SFX were fine - but the film really falls down on plot, script and editing. The plot, what it is, is revealed too slowly. I'm all for suspense, but not when you waste 45 minutes and leave only the last 45 or so to shoe-horn all the development in. Characters (and red-herrings) are suddenly forgotten / nobody reacts in a normal way / there's no real clue to events (and people) that are revealed later.. And - given the plot, which I'm trying not to reveal - there's way too little explanation of events which we're told are happening elsewhere (and would make what's going on more coherent).

As I say, the final shot - clearly designed to be a 'sting in the tail' (maybe even a hint at a sequel, or events continuing) will instead leave you walking out of the theatre trying to work out why?! / what?! / and, is there any way I can get my money back? (no).

Ought to be titled "Shallow Plot"

[MrGKB · 4/10 · 9 April 2006]

Picked this one up at the library, thus thankfully saving myself any expense, mostly because of the deceptive blurbs on the DVD case: "Refreshing and ambitious," (thoroughly wrong on the first count, debatable on the second) "Easily one of the most original horror films of the last year," (possibly, if you've never seen another horror film that year, or have extremely low standards) "Winner Best Picture, Dead by Dawn Film Festival 2004" (not a terribly glowing recommendation to attend any future DbD festivals, I can assure you), and several others that were mercifully covered with library stickers.

Others have already sufficiently commented on the weaknesses of this low-budget effort, including the choppy editing, the meandering, slapdash plot in hopeless search of focus (and intelligence), the forgettable acting, the serviceable but otherwise unremarkable camera-work, the competent but undistinguished score, and the effective but pointless gore effects.

Who greenlights crap like this? Who is dumb enough to put up the money for a project that only serves to prove Sturgeon's Law? Do no-name actors actually swell with pride at having a joke like this on their resumes? One can only scratch one's head and wonder.

Safe to say, a wreck like this makes films like "High Tension" or "Saw I/II" or even "Hostel" look like Oscar contenders.

Invest your time in this one only if you are really, really desperate for entertainment. Whatever promise its creators have or had was completely squandered on this turkey.

I had an epiphany after first submitting this comment, noticing as I did that one of the supporting actors is thanked in the credits, a guy who just happens to run an acting school. No doubt the school was in the vicinity of this film's shooting locations. No doubt the school provided a number of warm bodies for various roles. No doubt the school was counting on an influx of students and their cash via this movie. No doubt this school has failed to produce any recognizable talent since its inception, which is a shame, since it appears that the actor running this school works steadily, if only in television (and I say that facetiously, knowing that teeveeland offers far more and steadier work than film could ever hope to do). Which, if nothing else, once again goes to prove the truth of Sturgeon's Law.

An indie piece that explores daring new ways to suck

[Andela · 2/10 · 18 August 2005]

One user comment asked if they'd seen the same movie as everyone else, because otherwise he couldn't account for all the positive reviews. My theory on that is that this was a labor of love for the people who slogged through $100k to get this made, and they all came on here and wrote good reviews to pump it up. There's just no other possible explanation for the overwhelming good buzz this Gigliesque movie is getting.

MASSIVE SPOILERS from here on out:

The negative reviews you read are pretty much right on. There are plot holes, pointless characters and unfinished subplots galore, and you're expected to suspend disbelief to the point where it snaps and breaks. The killer being the widow is utterly ridiculous. Her motivation supposedly is that her husband and daughter were killed working on a dam project, so she went after people involved in building the dam. In one year she goes from ordinary wife and mother to raving psychopath who not only strings up naked babes before she guts them (something middle aged women just don't do), but keeps the bodies in her parlor until they have to be held up with wire and fish hooks. The sheriff wanders in at one point and he's only a room away and yet doesn't notice any kind of stench. I had a dead mouse trapped behind my wallboard once and had to hire a guy to come in and fumigate.

I don't agree with heaping praise on this flick because the cinematography doesn't suck as bad as a typical $100k movie. So what? The technical stuff should be a given. It's not what makes a movie good to anyone other than tech-dweebs. I also don't agree with the comment someone said that nobody goes to see a horror movie expecting a decent plot or depth. I do. Without those things the gore is like watching one of those evening news magazine shows about surgery--gross, but hardly frightening. That comment actually sums up this movie pretty well.

The gore in this film is excellent, but has no punch whatsoever because it lasts too long. Over and over we see the Bloody Boy until his presence begins to elicit a sigh. At the end where he feels around in the widow's throat, yeah that was pretty nasty but then he does it for so long you start wondering if maybe he lost his wallet in there.

I watched this on DVD, recommended by a friend who now owes me her firstborn child, and I caught the last minute of director commentary because I wanted that zombie thing that tore out Bloody Boy's heart at the very end explained to me. The director declined to explain it at all, merely saying he liked that people didn't get it. Let me translate for anyone who doesn't speak arrogant artiste: "I cannot write a coherent plot to save my life and when someone calls me on it I will pretend I find it tres amusing that they are too stupid to understand."

I truly hate to say it but...rather disappointing

[oleander_flimus · 27 July 2004]

I saw this a few days ago at the Fantasia Fest up here in Montreal. Quite a few members of the cast and crew were present, including the writer/director. The movie was made for a 'very low budget' which is why I hate to pan it but... I had heard this was a very different and utterly terrifying movie, but not much else. I love going into movies not knowing a thing about them so I was primed for this one. Now, for a low budget movie this thing looked great. The cinematography and lighting were really surprisingly good. The actors as well were mostly okay. However, this thing was not scary. For frights, the whole thing relies way too much on simple sound and music cues, the cinematic equivalent of someone sneaking up on you and yelling Boo! Some visuals were rather creepy (such as the young boy covered with blood) but were overused (that young boy is seen over and over until you start to forget that that's supposed to be blood all over him). The main problem with the film, however, is the script. It goes all over the place, introducing characters here and there and sending others on too-long treks which lead to very little. NOW, I'M GOING INTO SPOILERS HER SO STOP IF YOU CARE. For example, the sheriff running off into the woods seemed interesting and had potential...at first. But ran too long. The entire bus scenario was cool visually but served no purpose to the story other than to keep the deputy busy till the city-bloody-boy could get there and kill him. Then there were those laugh-out-loud moments: the deputy figuring out the cut-and-paste nature of the bloody-boy after staring at those photos for five minutes or so. And those burial grounds the cop dug wouldn't keep a Terrier from unearthing those corpses. But the script's biggest weakness is this: the killer. Why did she strip her victims and hang them from a tree before actually killing them. This has many sexual overtones, something you wouldn't expect from a little old woman acting out of revenge. And then...why in the hell did the bloody boy go to the sheriff's office? He is there to avenge the deaths of those he 'represents,' he knows who the killer is, so why does he not go find her rather than wasting his time sitting in the sheriff's office waiting for them to figure this muddled plot out? Sorry, I truly am...but this simply didn't work. Hell, it looked pretty though, and that was enough for Haute Tension to get picked up (Haute Tension had a much higher budget, though still pretty low by Hollywood standards, and so looked even better but its script, though fine and straight forward at first, falls flat at the end). It might make it on the cinematographer's obvious skills alone.

--Oleander Flimus

Godawful boring tripe

[juggerquick · 1/10 · 29 July 2006]

This movie had one good thing going for it: it ended.

The plot was a haphazard collection of clichéd overdone trendy horrorflick schlock. The writing reminded me of some things my classmates wrote in 8th grade English. The acting was passable...barely. Though, to be fair to the actors, I don't know how they made it through the drudgery of a script. Even the basics were awful. For instance, the sound of a gentleman removing his gun from his holster is FAR louder than the sound of someone getting cracked in the head with a rifle butt, or a car crashing into a tree. Logic is entirely absent. A girl hits a bump in her suv, the suv STARTS to go off the road, and she is already unconscious before the suv strikes anything...and I'm not talking continuity slip here- I'm talking, there's a shot to show you hey look she's knocked out...BY NOTHING. The movie is just BAD. Look at this, I'm ranting; THAT'S how bad this movie is. None of the plot "twists" are surprising, they're flat as a board. None of the characters are engaging, they're trite and tiresome. The soundtrack felt like I was being violated with a violin bow throughout the whole movie. Hint: When nothing is happening THERE IS NO NEED FOR LOUD-ASS SCREECHY STRINGS. SO STOP.

God, I'm so irked at this steaming puddle of drivel that I can't even write a coherent review.

Some movies are so bad you can't help but laugh. Then, there's some movies that are worse than that, and you just turn them off. Then, there's the next level down, where you can't stop watching, just to see if it's really as bad as it seems, and you always hate yourself for it in the end. This is one of the latter.

This movie was so bad that it managed to bring GORE down. That's right. A "gore" movie that made gore unenjoyable. And I don't mean "gross out" unenjoyable, I mean painfully dull unenjoyable. Think about that for a while. If there are mutilated corpses on screen and you are rolling your eyes - SOMETHING IS VERY VERY WRONG.

I could go on, and on, and on- don't even get me started on the Director's funny little preoccupation with a naked teenage boy. I understand the attempt at a gimmick, but mr. director included wayyy too many shots of "glistening" adolescent buttocks in the forest. Sketchy. Perhaps the most disturbing part of the film. Yeah, I said glistening. I thought I was watching a Roman Polanski or a Victor Salva film.

Speaking of said teenage boy, what a joke. The bloody kid shows up at the sheriffs station and is supposed to terrify us by just standing there. "OMG HE ARE COVERED IN BLOOD OH NOES!" All he does is make these faces that are supposed to look dramatic and scary (all accompanied by yet another godawful string hit), but in reality they look like the poor kids trying to pass a kidney stone. Fail. Finally after x number of hours handcuffed to a chair, he starts talking in an effects laden voice. Again, fail. If this kids back from the dead to avenge, why wouldn't he just get right to it, why go to the sheriffs station and chill. I'll tell you why - because the movie sucks, and we needed a half hour/45 minutes of constipated faces and blood randomly shooting from orifices while tired cutout characters stumble around vomiting awkward dialog and behaving senselessly as bloody writing appears on the walls("no one leaves", Oooo spoooooky.) This isn't plot development, this is tedium. At the end, we find out the "kid" is after one or two "bad people" in the town. So, uh, why is he hassling the sheriffs station, and writing things like "no one leaves" and "our fate is yours" on the walls there? It's beyond senseless, it's pitiful. I'll say it again: FAIL.

I've seen people criticize that this movie is style over substance, and with all due respect, I have to disagree. The reason being that this movie HAS no style. Seriously. It tries really really hard to be gimmicky, and falls flat on it's face. Good style can carry a movie, even if it's bad. This movie had NO style whatever. There was nothing artful present. Nothing.

While on the topic of "artfulness", I've also seen people say that the camera work was passable, some even went so far as to say good. Again, I'm inclined to disagree. SO many shots were poorly composed, visually flat, skewed at an angle, boring, showed nothing, etc etc etc.

If you like good horror flicks, intelligent horror flicks, or even a good gore flick- Save yourself. Avoid this at all costs. It's a tired rip-off collection of clichés that tries really hard to be Evil Dead and fails miserably.

However, if you like smoking weed in your parents basement while you listen to Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson, you think that "trent is kewlies" and you dislike showers and thinking, this one may be for you.

It wasn't even worth the rental fee, let alone the time it took to watch. I want my four dollars back. :[

What's the point?

[StevenFlyboy · 1/10 · 12 November 2006]

This movie made no sense whatsoever. What was the point? People getting killed constantly and blood all over the place. What's the point? Why was all this weird stuff happening? Blood coming down the walls, blood coming down windows, blood inside a school bus. Blood, Blood, Blood. Again, what was the point? Just another stupid, pointless movie made by uninspired would-be directors and writers. Why can't people make good movies like the old days? I think the problem is everything has been done and nobody these days is inspired enough to create anything decent. All they do is either make up pointless movies like this one or remake something from the past. Are movies ever going to get good again?

ALMOST a very good movie...

[willywants · 7/10 · 24 July 2005]

This strange horror offering has a blood-spattered teenage boy showing up at a police station. What happened to him, and how does this event tie in with the murder of a girl the previous year? This off-beat little horror film came out of the blue (for me at least), because prior to seeing it in my local video store, I'd never heard of it. I rented it, and let me say that while it's not the best horror flick I've seen lately, and it certainly does have it's fair share of problems, it's definitely a breath of fresh air from most of the crap released into cinema these days that people call "horror". Considering it's tiny budget, "Shallow Ground" pulls off some pretty impressive stuff. The film is shot on 16mm but looks great visually, I was shocked afterwords when I found out it WASN'T shot on 35mm. The actors were hit and miss but that's to be expected from a film of this caliber. Steve London's score is very good too, nicely dark and foreboding. One of the best aspects of the film though are the great make-up effects by Patrick Magee. There's lots of disgusting-looking corpses and blood, and the death of the Helen (Patricia McCormack) was great. There's almost no CGI used in this film (thank God) and horror fans will most certainly be pleased by the gruesome set pieces on display here.

Still, there's some stuff that didn't work so well too. The plot takes a long time to unfold and really isn't that interesting. The characters were mostly 1-D, and the ending, though cool, makes no sense whatsoever. This is an odd little horror film, certainly not bad but not *quite* great either. Still recommended, though, as it most certainly is unique and well-done.

7/10.

This movie sucked bad!!

[christy_jean · 1/10 · 17 December 2005]

I am sorry, but after watching this movie...i came to the conclusion i wasted 2 hours of my life. The whole time this movie was on i had no clue what was going on...nothing made sense. Until i came here and read some of the *spoilers*...then it made some what sense. The plot sucked....

Just like the movie cabin fever....it starts out in the middle of no where. It was as if i turned a movie on half way thru and was trying to understand it...

I wouldn't recommend this movie to my worst enemy!!

I will admit..the gore was good...especially when Helen got what was coming to her. Thats the only upside to this down-hill, very apparent low budget flick!

Restless spirits

[ctomvelu1 · 7/10 · 2 January 2010]

Not be confused with Danny Boyle's A SHALLOW GRAVE, this low-budget horror flick centers around a series of murders in a small town. A sheriff's office is shutting down and preparing to relocate when a bloodied teen walks in the door. The revelation of his identity only makes things more confusing. It is hard to say more about this movie without giving it all away. Suffice it to say SHALLOW GROUND involves restless spirits and their thirst for revenge. The first half has some wonderfully unsettling and occasionally scary moments. The second half loses some momentum, although the killer's identity comes as a neat surprise and pays homage to Hitchcock in its own twisted way. The supernatural elements are kept to a minimum, which works in the movie's favor. Horror film fans will have seen the plot before, but may appreciate the clever way in which it is presented. The acting is hit or miss at best, and the movie is extremely bloody. It deals pretty graphically with torture-murders, so the little ones should be in bed before you watch this.

An Awful, Awful Movie

[bureau203 · 1/10 · 6 December 2006]

I could spend all night picking apart why this movie is so terrible. Unfortunately, it's not worth the effort. Let's just say the characters are one-dimensional, the story is confused and contorted beyond all imagining, and the dialog is inane. Added to this, when the story does finally begin to make some sense in the end, a brand new evil appears out of the woods, apparently unrelated to anything else in the movie, and destroys whatever cohesive thought the movie had.

I rented this movie based on the glowing reviews on the case. Note to self: Never rent a movie recommended by The Montreal Mirror or Horrorview.com. "Home Media Retailing" says it delivers an "intelligent, terrifying story." No, it doesn't. Saw II, for example, could never be accused of having an "intelligent" story - but it is about a hundred times as intelligent as this thing.

Practically every scene features something unbelievable. Not "Oh wow, that's so gross it's unbelievable!", but "nobody would ever say/do that, that's unbelievable!" And the movie doesn't seem to know whether its a supernatural thriller, a "dawn of the dead" movie or a murder mystery. Maybe it thinks it is some of each. In fact, it's just an amateurish stew of competing, dumb plot lines. The movie mostly doesn't make any sense, and when it does, it's predictable and silly.

Better than good, but not quite great.

[arc81 · 9/10 · 9 June 2005]

First off, let me say that the reason I gave this movie a 9 out of 10, is because I'm basing it off of my own personal horror flick scale. I almost always have to lower my standards a bit for horrors. So I rated it a 9 as a horror film.

Anyways -- At the start, I thought Shallow Ground was going to be another cheesy knock-off horror flick, and boy, was I wrong. It had its expected cheap scares, and some that were very original. I wouldn't quite call it scary, but more along the lines of really creepy. Given that the movie was on a low budget, they pulled out some great actors from the wood-works, I was very impressed. The story was, well.. unique, but not entirely -- yet it was very well written, and I have a hunch that the writer got exactly what he wanted (hopefully that all made sense). This movie will keep you interested as long as you have an open mind to latter day horror films. All-in-all, this was definitely one of the better horrors I've seen in a long time. It's just a shame I didn't know about it until a year after its release. It's worth a watch, trust me.

Oh yeah, and don't let your kids watch this one.

Give it a break; it wasn't that bad

[czjrox_2 · 7/10 · 25 July 2009]

Look, the film definitely was not the best that I've ever seen but for the budget that it had, it was very well made. And, for once, the story took an original twist. The film is about a bloody naked boy who stumbles upon a dying town and haunts whichever resident he touches. The town is dying because of a damn that they built near it. The boy is, essentially, a vessel for the dead who died wrongly in the town. The murders are brought on by a lonely woman who lost her husband and daughter in an accident while they were building the dam. To avenge them, she kills all those associated with the dam. Honestly, if you were confused during it, you clearly weren't paying attention as I understood the entire film and found it very interesting. It's original, it's fun and most importantly, it's believable, as far as it goes. Sure, a vessel for a dead is out there. But, it's a horror film. What did you expect?

Oh my god...

[fatherboone · 1/10 · 2 November 2007]

This movie does not make a damn bit of sense from the beginning. What starts as a somewhat creepy mystery changes quickly to a "divine intervention" theme, and it's just awful. So the old lady killed a bunch of people? Who was the guy in the blue? Why are the dead speaking to us? The film never answers these questions, and I can't even begin to describe how awkward the plot is. Rottentomatoes gave this movie an 80%, but I am warning you...do not see this movie. A clever horror that actually makes sense is what you want. The Ring, The Sixth Sense, Vacancy; all these are good horror movies. But do NOT rent this piece of crap. Just take my word for it.

No Sense....

[Graham-38 · 3/10 · 13 May 2006]

I love the Sci-Fi Channel movies, and most of them are of equal caliber. I recently saw Shallow Ground and now I'm scratching my head. This movie had some pretty poor casting, terrible dialogue, and some of the worst character development I've ever seen.

This movie revolves around two plots. There's the naked bloody kid who has apparent supernatural powers. Then there's the mysterious disappearances of many people in the town. Incidentally, everyone is leaving the town because "the dam is completed." I took this to mean that the valley would be flooded. But then, I'm pretty sure everyone HAS to leave.

The movie starts off weak and ends with a whimper. It tries to be more than your average thriller and instead it comes off much worse.

Absolutely horrifyingly bad-THE WORST MOVIE EVER MADE?

[nittayawilde · 1/10 · 9 May 2006]

This is the worst horror movie ever made. It is so bad that you wish you could have cut the funds before it was made. It is a schoolbook example of how you shouldn't make a movie.

1. The plot is full of holes and question-marks. The writer thought it would be a good idea having a red painted naked young man walking about in a small village without a purpose, and an awful police force running around with shotguns in the forest trying to solve a mystery that doesn't make sense. 2. The cast is so terrible that you actually want to see them dead. 3. The music has a very important role in this movie - it takes over every scene! The composer thinks that because it is a horror movie, you need a "full orchestra psycho sound" to EVERY scene. 4. The bonus feature on the DVD is HILARIOUS! After you've watched the worst movie ever made, you get to see the cast and crew guide you through the failure of their movie making. Watch out for big laughs when the director explains the plot, and when some of the actors gets interviewed about the greatness of the director.

AND DON'T FORGET TO LEAN BACK AND KICK YOUR SHOES OFF AT THE END OF THE FILM AND EXPERIENCE THE WEIRDEST ENDING EVER!

Harbinger of a deep dark past.

[michaelRokeefe · 3/10 · 28 October 2007]

Sheldon Wilson's stark supernatural low budget horror film is too contrived, hard to follow and before it is over it becomes a head-scratcher...why does anyone watch this all the way through. Some pretty gory scenes, but that is about it. Out of the woods stumbles a naked teenage boy covered in blood, carrying the very same hunting knife that was used in a brutal murder twelve months earlier. Small town sheriff Jack Sheppard(Timothy V. Murphy)obligates himself to deal with his own demons and dark past and the slaying he failed to stop. Supernatural, horror and bunk; the story line is just not very smart. The cast includes: Stan Kirsch, Patty McCormack, Natallie Avital and Rocky Marquette.

Disturbing.

[gothic_a666 · 7/10 · 5 March 2006]

Disturbing.

It is true that there are many issues in Shallow Ground that hamper its performance as a masterpiece and keep it from reaching classic status. The acting, for example, was far from excellent, there are too many easily perceived goofs and the characters fail to make any impression other than that of their physical presence on set and even that can almost be disregarded, at times.

Yet, there is a very fortunate combination of factors that rise this movie above the average, uninspired product with little or no value. First of all, the scenery. Not only are the woods chosen a very strong visual setting in which to unroll a horror story as it was explored almost to the fullest. Instead of the typical dark-hued and mostly shady forest environment for which most of these movies would go for, Shallow Ground opts to shoot sun dappled clearings and light flooded groves. And this green preponderance is shockingly effective when it becomes the background for the blood soaked boy whose silent performance may very be one of the most uncanny characters ever to haunt a horror movie.

Which is another strong feature in this movie, perhaps the most original one, the nameless creation whose identity is a mystery and whose purpose is never fully explained. Although many will claim this is a fault in the script, that plot-wise it is a muddle of never fully developed ideas, in a way that is exactly its allure. A horror movie must leave something to the imagination, there is not need to skin down motives and expose a very well define system of motivations for it to work as a nightmarish concoction of the not necessarily logic.

Although it does remind one of an X Files Episode, the gruesome and very often blood spattered approach that permeates the whole movie set it a few rungs above the toned down horror of our days.

At least, Shallow Ground is not afraid to be a pure horror movie, one that accepts the rules of the genre only to introduce fresh variations within a tradition that seemed to be dying off. Shallow Ground may the first movie of the 2000's to follow the Texas Chainsaw legacy.

And that is praise worthy.

Plot keeps you wanting more, awesome shot for a micro budget

[george-irwin · 3 August 2004]

Saw the flick in Montreal and overall loved it. The plot keeps giving you tidbits and lets your imagination go to lots of places, then adds another twist.

The quality of the shooting is amazing for a microbudget flick and it is well rounded (good score, etc.).

The pure horror makes for a great summer flick. Sure there is the odd cheesy horror moment of guy stuffing boxes in his truck for ten minutes waiting for the horror to happen, but not many of us are going to this to be fully intellectually stimulated.

Overall, great story, great effects, good production, definitely worth some summer or halloween fun!

Horrible

[charlee420 · 1/10 · 3 September 2005]

I can't believe how many people on here gave this movie more than two stars. Granted, it's a B horror film, and this must be remembered when viewing these types of "films." However this one missed the mark. I bought this film on DVD (luckily pirated Chinese DVDs cost less than a dollar) and I still want my money back. It has the feel of a USA up all night with Gilbert Godfrey feeling to it that made me want to take a shower after viewing.

The acting is horrible, as is to be expected in this type of film, and the scripted dialogue does nothing to ease the pain. The cinematography is actually quite decent for such a low budget film, but the forced soundtrack distracts you from appreciating the shots.

And yes, why the F*(K is the Police Chief/Sheriff/whatever he is of this small, rural, inbred part of America speaking with an Irish accent for?

Promising and Intriguing Beginning, Confusing and Disappointing Resolution

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 23 November 2006]

While preparing to shutdown a sheriff's station in the woods, the deputies Stuart Dempsey (Stan Kirsch) and Laura Russell (Lindsey Stoddart) are surprised by a naked teenager covered in blood and with a hunt knife in his hand. The boy is arrested and Sheriff Jack Sheppard (Timothy V. Murphy) is summoned by his assistant. While investigating the identity of the boy, Jack hopes to solve the disappearance of many people in the area, including his girlfriend. When the identity of the boy is disclosed, the mystery increases.

The beginning of "Shallow Ground" is promising and intriguing, and I recalled the "X-Files" series. Unfortunately, in a certain moment, it seems that director and writer Sheldon Wilson lost the control of his creation and the story goes nowhere, becoming very confused and having an unsatisfactory and disappointing resolution. In the end, there are three plots: the lead one, about the old lady that lost her husband and daughter in the dam, blames everybody and "builds" a new family of her own: the secondary one is about the torment sheriff , that suffers for not having saved the blond girl. The third one is about a drug dealer that was executed in the city. For some unexplained reason, the dead seek revenge, and all the people killed in the woods somehow combines in one gore being. The same happens with the drug dealer. But why so much complication, wouldn't it be easier if the boy had gone directly to the killer's house and stop her crimes the same way the dealer did with the officer that shot him? The last scene is simply an awful hook for a possible sequel. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Terra Rasa" ("Shallow Ground")

suspends your socks maybe

[m-stp · 3/10 · 8 May 2005]

I guess no one really expects horror flicks to make complete sense.This "film" leaves any sense behind in the first 5 minutes. There are enough holes in story to drive a fleet of semi-trucks thru.

Although there is some originality, the script writer tries to be too clever for anyone's good. There are so many "sub plots" the main storyline loses any coherence\continuity it becomes too much work to care about main characters\story.

For those wanting to know what this is about. done wrong \ revenge \ get to it already will ya

I could have found a better way to waste an hour or two.

Fantastic fun

[Danny_G13 · 8/10 · 7 July 2005]

Budget horror defies its shoestring funds and provides a cracking yarn for 90 minutes.

Shallow Ground is the type of movie you can't really reveal too much about in terms of its plot, as otherwise you'll spoil the vast majority of its content.

Nevertheless, a simple synopsis is that a small town police station which is about close up for good is thrown into disarray on the day most of its employees are leaving when a young man entirely drenched in blood shows up. Entirely disturbed by this, the officers realise they have to investigate what's going on, and when a blood test reveals the blood's origins the police realise they have a real mystery on their hands.

Saying more is pointless, so I won't. To say the least this movie was an absolute surprise. Granted it came across as a glorified episode of the X-FIles and like-minded TV sci-fi dramas, but this didn't really matter. A movie has to entertain, and given how this one opens and develops, believe it or not, it's quite fascinating and *gasp* original.

Certainly there are moments which require suspension of disbelief, but hey, it's a movie, and it's fiction.

The direction is pretty decent, even if there are areas which could have benefited from faster, more thrusting direction - the pacey plot really needed regular breakneck pace and it slowed down in the odd place which wasn't the wisest move.

The acting is acceptable enough, but who watches horror for the acting...

The gore levels are rather high - the movie is not especially gory, but it has a high volume of the visceral stuff to say the least.

The strongest aspect is definitely the plot, and the special effects add a lot to it too.

Fairly recommended.

Yeahhh, Bloody Boyyyyyyyy!!!

[Lord-of-Delusion · 7/10 · 6 July 2005]

It's always nice to be pleasantly surprised by an indie, low-budget horror flick, and this is one that fits the bill. Shallow Ground is unique in it's premise, but actually falls into some classic genre staples, like sound induced scares, and people being stalked in the woods. But what's nice about this film, is that it looks, and more importantly, FEELS like something you haven't quite seen yet, and that is this movies biggest asset. The film starts out eerily enough, with a blood covered boy entering a soon to be abandoned police station in the middle of BFE, if you catch my drift. Things begin to take shape after that, and we get an actual mystery involving some disappearances of some local yokels from a year ago. That's as far as I'll go on the plot, other than to say it keeps you thinking, and you're never quite sure where it's going until the climax. That's the good, along with some very good editing, a very disorienting soundtrack (it works), and some actual acting abilities on display. There isn't much bad to say about this film, other than the strange addition of Ray, who I think was the deputy's dad (she calls him Ray), who seems to know more than anyone else, although how or why he does is never explained. A little back-story on him would have helped. All in all, I can't count how many times I have been duped by a DVD cover, proclaiming movies to be the next generation in horror movies. This time, the accolades are justified. The director has obvious skills (catch the making of documentary) and imagination, along with a creative vibe to bring something original to the table, w/out copping out to being yet another 70's homage film. Yes, the influences are there, but they take a back seat to a fresh approach to a genre that is being over-run with the same things over and over again. This one's worth a view. 7 out of 10 stars.

it simply sucks

[larssundin · 1/10 · 23 July 2005]

Maybe it's a classic splatter with nothing else to give the audience than lots of blood for no real reason. There are tons of other films that makes a better effort to do that than this movie.

The story is as thin as a mouse driven over by a train. It would also help if director didn't spell the clues out for us like if we were children. The Director really needs to work on his storytelling. If you need a reason to splat out some blood this isn't it!

The other thing that REALLY annoys me is the fact that an American small town cop speaks with a foreign accent.

I HATE JEAN CLAUDE VAN DAMME!!! I'm not so keen on Arnie either.