Shallow Ground

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!

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?

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.

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!

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.

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.

Just saw Shallow Ground at the Fantasia Film Festival and it scared the hell out of me. The bloody boy rocked!! I give a 10 out of 10 on the bloody boy as I have never seen such a horror icon before. This is the best looking low budget horror movie I've seen a while, the direction of photography did not look low budget. The music was another element that was great which upgraded the movie experience. The story kept me guessing 'till the end. Looking forward to seeing it again as the movie leaves you asking a lot of questions, like the ending! Shallow Ground 2 perhaps? As a true horror fan its nice to have a treat like Shallow Ground come along.

While in Montreal, I took in Shallow Ground as part of the Fantasia Film Festival. I thought it was awesome - great direction, creepy score/sound-track, believable performances and enough of the jolts and twists that I expect in a horror flick to keep me on edge throughout. This is a horror film after all. When I see a horror flick I want to gasp out loud, feel my heart pound and, a sure sign of success, have to sleep with the lights on for a day or 2 afterwards. I am not looking for an Oscar worthy piece of cinema, I want to be freaked out. Done and done. When I found out more regarding how the film was made I was even more impressed. If this is what the film makers can do with a shoe-string of a budget, I say bring on the big bucks for their next picture!

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

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.