Shadowland

An ambassador and his family are taken into the middle of the woods by kidnappers. However, it turns out that there's some kind of lethal supernatural force in said woods as well. Writer/director Simon Kay relates the absorbing story at a constant pace, takes time to develop the characters, ably crafts a grim gloom-doom mood, maintains a take-no-prisoners brutal tone throughout, makes nice use of the breathtaking sylvan locations, and generates a good deal of tension. The solid acting by the capable cast keeps this movie humming: Vivien Taylor as the feisty Jamie, Keenan Ben as shell-shocked war veteran Cam, Jason Harvey as excitable cokehead Mickey, Stuart Daly as the angry Eli, Lily Cooper as the willful Sandy, Amelia Eve as the perky Elaine, Tony Greengrass as unhinged old guy Kane, and Kenneth Lennon as the two-fisted Ken. A neat little flick.

This fast-paced action horror stars Amelia Eve from the Haunting of Bly Manor show, and features Vivien Taylor from the Outpost franchise. It's a modest production but has a lot of action and SFX, so you get a lot of bang for your buck, especially if you're into indie genre film-making.

The film takes place in Dartmoor National Park in Scotland and it appears they are hyping the location. The film opens with a couple driving to a military barracks in this location and then jumps to a scene where there is an attempted kidnapping of the US ambassador in the same location. We discover the opening scene was actually a flashback and not contemporary with the kidnapping. The group is in an underground facility run by a crazy acting old man who warns of "It" who will kill them if they go into the dark. The film was very poorly done and edited. It is hard to act when the script is nonsense. Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

The worst movie ever! Best part is the scenery of Scotland! Doesn't even merit a star.

I'm all for a British low budget horror flick, and was hoping for the same enjoyment I got from films like The Borderlands (2013) This felt more like a student film. Initially the music gave it an 80's horror film feel, very John Carpenter and I loved it but anything that wasn't there to supplement the action scenes, didn't seem to fit. The editing was jumpy, intentionally I'm sure, but scenes cut with a bang, between past and present, and between present and present, and sometimes just when folk were exiting a car. It could have used a little more set decoration to hide the fact a cheap hotel was used in the early scenes and that the furnishing were obviously there when they arrived to shoot. Using it as is, only perpetuated the student film feel. The sound needed work as the dialogue sounded like it was in a hotel corridor and it's always good practice to make gunfire sound like gunfire ... to cover the sounds of the triggers clicking for nothing. The special effects were a bit "doctor who" but the blood work was good. Whomever found those outside locations did a great job as the scenery was beautiful, but it's a shame that the drone shots caught the local residents in their gardens. Perhaps should have edited those out. However half an hour in it became much more interesting, and I was ready for the promised horror. It was almost there but it could have been so much more. The idea was sound though. Amelia Eve did a decent job with the an american accent but I was never sure why her character needed to be American. She was great though, and it was a smart move to use her face and name on the poster as, following her fantastic performance in The Haunting Of Bly Manor, she brings a lot of attention to this movie. Hell, she was the reason I watched it. You can see that she has the potential to take on a more mainstream action movie already, as she was confident in the role. Gun in one hand, flare in the other, lighting it on her leg, that's an action hero in the making. Everyone has to start somewhere, and for me, this movie could have been a solid low budget horror flick, if only it had focussed on the horror and left aside the American ambassador subplot that seemed unnecessary.

I gave it twenty six minutes before I looked for a review to help me decide as to whether I should stick with it or twist. The first review here is pretty true and saved me another hour and twenty three minutes of my life. I actually have no idea as to who is shooting who and for what reason. I couldn't determine who was mumbling what to who, nor did it particularly grab my attention. Not for me, I twisted and left.

So it has Miss Eve in it which is a great actress but my that movie was so terrible & I'm from Scotland but I couldn't get through it bad everything.

Nope. Got about an hour in and was dozing off. It's like a soap opera with some guns in the end. Skip this snooze.

...but it sadly missed the mark by a long shot, mainly due to the absolutely awful acting and the lack of creature development, save yourself the disappointment and skip this one.

This reminds me of the school panto where a member of the production team stands behind the curtains and prompts the actors when they forget or fluff their lines. I cannot emphasise enough how bad this movie is. Please do yourself a favour and give this a huge miss. Probably ranks as the worst movie that I almost watched this year!