The Shrine (2010)

A group of young journalists investigate a cult said to practice human sacrifice, but their ambitious ways may lead them to becoming the cult's next victims.

Director:

Jon Knautz

Writers:

Jon Knautz, Brendan Moore,

Stars:

Aaron Ashmore, Cindy Sampson, Meghan Heffern

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Aaron Ashmore	...	Marcus
Cindy Sampson	...	Carmen
Meghan Heffern	...	Sara
Trevor Matthews	...	Henryk
Vieslav Krystyan	...	Arkadiusz
Laura de Carteret	...	Laura Taylor (as Laura DeCarteret)
Ben Lewis	...	Eric Taylor
Julia Debowska	...	Lidia
Monica Bugajski	...	Emilia
Stefen Hayes	...	Aleks
Connor Stanhope	...	Dariusz
David Tompa	...	Henchmen #1
Neil Davison	...	Henchman #3
Alexander Krstich	...	Henchmen #2
Voytek Skrzeta	...	Henchmen #4 (as Wojtek Skrzeta)

Storyline

After a young American backpacker goes missing in Europe, a group of journalists link his disappearance to a remote village in Poland. They travel there hoping to get the story, but as they unravel the secrets behind this mysterious village, they are suddenly pursued by hostile locals. Unable to escape, they soon become the next victims of ritualistic human sacrifice. Forced into the gruesome reality of true survival horror, the journalists soon discover that this village hides a much darker secret than they could ever imagine.

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Plot Keywords:

journalist | village | poland | escape | fog | 

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Taglines:

Once you find it, they won't let you leave.

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Genres:

Horror

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

Canada

Release Date:

14 October 2010 (USA)

Also Known As:

Cult

Filming Locations:

Pickering, Ontario, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

CAD 1,500,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Wesley Clover Media, Brookstreet Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

85 min

Did You Know?

Goofs

When Carmen photographs the gargoyle statue in the clearing, she holds the camera in a normal horizontal (landscape) position. Seen from reverse a second later, the camera is vertical (portrait).

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Connections

Referenced in Dead Sea (2013)

User Reviews

Surprisingly good movie

I am a huge fan of B horror movies and I must say in recent years we see very few well made low budget horror flicks where lack of big bucks is compensated by a good story, hard work and movie-making ingenuity. The Shrine is one of those movies that make the effort to tell a good story relying more on psychology and suspense than CGI fireworks. That said: if special effects are called for – the makers of the movie did not cut corners and those few FX scenes look 100% real and add to the overall atmosphere of the movie.

One more bonus point: the people speaking Polish in the movie actually DO speak Polish and lines they speak DO make sense. That is something even big budget flicks mess up quite often.

I give the movie an extra star for the effort. I know some Polish-speaking reviewers blasted the movie for the "bad Polish", but come one – the movie was made by Canadians in Canada primarily for the North American audience. The whole point of people speaking Polish without subtitles was to add to the atmosphere of insecurity and confusion as felt by the main characters.

The fact that the movie-makers made such an effort to write a ton of dialog in Polish and have the actors (almost none of which is a native Polish speaker) speak it in a manner that was 90% understandable and in some cases sounded almost native – well that was awesome.

The bad: if you speak Polish you will know what is going on way sooner than you should.

The portrayal of a "Polish village" for the story was about as accurate as a portrayal of a Mississippi town in big-budget "Straw Dogs" (if you are not familiar with the South you MIGHT believe it will take an ambulance an hour to get to a town big enough to have a high school in 2011). Bottom line, if you never were to Poland it will do quite fine… :-)