‘The Shade’ Review
Stars: Kellen Raffaelo, Chris Galust, Lauren Benanti, Dylan McTee, Sam Duncan, Michael Boatman, Mariel Molino | Written and Directed by Tyler Chipman
A young boy (Kellen Raffaelo; Letters to Santa, Terrifier 3) witnesses the suicide of his father, and the appearance of the cowled, faceless figures that come to claim his soul. It’s a nightmare that plagues twenty-year-old Ryan (Chris Galust; Castle Freak, The Seventh Day) who has recently lost his father to suicide. Nightmare is a term that could be applied to his waking life as well.
His mother Renee (Lauren Benanti; The Detour, Goodrich) has buried herself in her work and his older brother Jason (Dylan McTee; Wrong Turn, Midnighters) has gone off to college and has not returned. That leaves Ryan to take care of his younger sibling James (Sam Duncan; What We Do in the Shadows, Not the Same Clarence) while also attending classes, working, and seeing his therapist Dr. Huston (Michael Boatman; Spin City, The Good Fight) and finding time for his girlfriend Alex (Mariel Molino; Secret Life of a Dominatrix, The Watchful Eye).
It’s been hard for him to juggle all of these responsibilities, and now he faces another challenge. His brother has left school under mysterious circumstances and returned home a very different person than the one who left.
If it sounds like The Shade is a family drama rather than a horror film, that’s because to a certain extent it is, though how much will depend on the viewer’s belief, or lack thereof, in the supernatural and his interpretation of the film’s events. It may also depend on their experiences with grief, loss and mental illness, either their own or of someone close to them.
Is the spectre Ryan starts to see after Jason returns an evil spirit that is responsible for his father’s death and the changes in his brother? Or is it a hallucination caused by a cycle of trauma, stress and mental illness? Is what happened to his father, and now seems to be happening to his brother, getting a grip on Ryan? Can he break the cycle before it takes a toll on James, who is seeing all of this unfold?
Writer/director Tyler Chipman has expanded his 2020 short into his first feature, and he may have expanded it a bit too much, as The Shade comes in at over two hours long with, apart from the opening nightmare, nothing that you would expect from a horror film happening until the second half. The writing and acting are solid and those who like a slow-burning plot will be fine with it, others however may be glancing at their phones before then.
It is worth sticking with it, however, as the film’s second half becomes considerably darker both thematically and visually and The Shade starts to deliver scares and an unsettling-looking creature. But even then, Chipman leaves the viewer to figure out for themselves what is real and what isn’t, so, as I mentioned earlier, you can interpret what you see as supernatural or psychological horror revolving around hereditary mental illness depending on your beliefs.
The film does suffer from its unnecessary length, it could easily lose ten to fifteen minutes, and a somewhat anti-climactic ending. It also doesn’t help that, despite a strong performance by Galust, Ryan is a hard character to get behind initially, he takes a bit of getting to know and warming up to before he seems like something other than a stoner and an asshole.
However, you choose to look at it, The Shade is a powerful film with strong messages about grief and how people choose to deal with or avoid dealing with it. It’s not an easy watch, but its strong script and performances backed up by the atmospheric cinematography of Tom Fitzgerald (American Juggalo 2, This Killing Business) and Brian McOmber’s (Hail Satan?, It Comes At Night) make it worth investing the time and effort.
**** 4/5
Level 33 Entertainment released The Shade to Digital and VOD Platforms on November 22nd.
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