Let's get the nitpicky bitching out of the way up front. First, the title change from "Shadows" was a laughably poor decision. At best it is completely irrelevant to the film, and at worst it is deceptive.
Second, I would argue against the characterization of this film as a horror movie. Yes, there are some some moments which make the viewer jump, but that is not this film's purpose. The startling moments seem intended to jolt you to attention to what is happening in the scene.
When you lose a loved one, especially when you lose them to unnatural causes, people repeat the exact same platitudes over and over, the platitudes you have heard endlessly repeated your entire life, in person and in film and the written word. Not out of unkindness or indifference but because they feel obligated to speak to the occasion but there is absolutely nothing one can can say that could be genuinely comforting. One of those platitudes is that "a part of you will always be with them" and "a part of them will always be with you". I heard that many times when my own mother died and which, due to the circumstances of her death, was a particularly inappropriate comment. Perhaps that is why I so appreciated this film taking that bromide literally.
Jeff Matthews has lost his wife and son in a car accident that left him unconscious for weeks and forced him to learn to walk again. When he wakes, he feels little to nothing for his loss but not as part of 'normal' grieving; he has literally left a part of himself behind with his family and it causes violent, deeply disturbing auditory and visual...hallucinations? Or true visions? (Or is there a difference, and that's a different conversation and film). When these begin occurring in public places, his private nurse Choy becomes concerned enough that she consults a family member who is in touch with the other side of reality, if you will. Her aunt realizes that Matthews did not let go of his family but left his soul with them, hence his inability to feel but also what is keeping the vale open, forcing the visions upon him, and will soon kill his body. She takes them to Warren, whom she believes is uniquely able to help, when she damages herself trying to help Matthews on her own. Warren is reluctant to help at first but finally agrees to show Matthews and Choy how to save Matthews' life.
You don't get any backstory on Matthews, which is good, it would only have served as a distraction. All you learn in the opening sequence is how much he loves his family, why they are in Bangkok, and that is all you need. He is angry about what has happened to him, not just the loss but all the consequences of that loss, and Elwes plays the anger well and real. Short, impatient, no speeches expounding on it or justifying it. His relationship with Choy is ambiguous, perhaps deliberately, without clarity on whether Choy is fully in love with Matthews or has just come to care for him over those many weeks and does not want to see him suffer. It is not important to the story and the ambiguity does not leave any loose ends, in my opinion.
I've always enjoyed William Hurt and he gives another one of his excellent performances here. Some of the dialogue is a bit hackneyed - I've always thought English too limited in vocabulary and voice to satisfactorily express abstracts ideas and multisensory experiences - but Hurt's less-is-more style gives him the singular gift to make his lines perfectly natural and understandable. And as you learn, his character can do this because Warren has walked this very road himself.
The beings in the shadows are perhaps where someone got the clever idea to rename the film "Hellgate", as they do appear demonic, although they did not seem to me to be even sentient. There is also a physical gate. I think shadow things represent how grasping and relentless and ubiquitous our past can be, how difficult it can be to break its hold. Matthews sets out to do this with Choy's help and while Warren starts out as merely a guide, in the end he takes an active role, which gives him the unexpected chance to do the same for himself, having failed once before.
Some might think this film a bit too cerebral and not enough fright action, but as I stated earlier, this could come of being misled by the revised title. As much as I appreciated the overall lack of exposition I also appreciated the lack of an epilogue, two bad habits of American film. I didn't need the film wrapped up in a pretty bow with a "and these are the lessons we've learned" vignette tacked on at the end. This was just one chapter in Matthews' life (and Choy's and Warren's, for that matter); that life will continue after this episode. How that life plays out is up to them. They have let go of old things, perhaps taken hold of new, and come through with all their pieces intact.
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