‘The Shade’ Review: Slow Burn Horror That Burns Far Too Slowly
You can make a successful film sans subtext or commentary. But it’s nearly impossible to make a successful film with only subtext and commentary. Viewers need something to relate to, something to draw them in. As effective as The Shade is at chronicling the lasting effects of suicide and the toll it takes on immediate family, there isn’t any one element beyond that by which I was pulled in.
The film follows Ryan (Chris Galust), a young man whose father tragically took his own life. As Ryan attempts to pick up the pieces, he and his brothers are plagued by the aftermath of their dad’s untimely death. Ryan and his siblings see an apparition that taunts and terrifies them. But is the ghost really there, or is it all in their minds?
A film without a strong narrative arc.
This dramatic horror film seemingly sets out to serve as an existential meditation on the emotional wounds that never go away following the suicide of a loved one and the dangers of ignoring one’s own mental health struggles. The monster is clearly a metaphor for the unprocessed emotional trauma Ryan and his siblings carry around with them. That piece is really well done, if a bit heavy-handed at times. However, the picture is so light on substance that I found myself growing frustrated. This feature runs more than two hours and nearly nothing of real interest transpires during that time.
The sequences that do not involve what I have dubbed ‘the trauma monster’ have little to no bearing on the narrative at large. We get a window into Ryan’s life and see how his perspective is informed by his unprocessed trauma. But the narrative never really goes anywhere. It’s noble to speak to such important subject matter and it’s done very respectfully here. But that’s only one piece of the puzzle. It’s as if writer/director Tyler Chipman wanted the emotional weight of the picture to take the place of a proper narrative.
Conflict solely for the sake of conflict quickly grows tedious.
The scenes without the trauma monster present are often rife with conflict. Not tension, mind you. But conflict. There’s far too much time spent on pointless skirmishes. It’s like that’s the universal language the cast uses to communicate. The core characters vacillate between light bickering and properly going at it over the most mundane issues. Some of that makes sense to the story, but a lot of it reads as utterly pointless. The frequent disagreements are not used as a tension-building tactic. Much of the conflict is just bickering for the sake of bickering. The characters even make time to argue about marshmallows. I understand that we often turn to arguing when we don’t have the words to say what we really mean. But that aspect is explored to the point of exhaustion and might have been better relegated to a single sequence, rather than permeating nearly every exchange within.
The characters are well-rendered but hard to warm to.
Another downfall is that the characters are a challenge to warm up to. The performances are decent. But there isn’t anything to distract from the lack of narrative progression. To be stuck with these people for over 2 hours without anything to keep us tethered is a big ask. Slow burn works best when we have a dynamic and engaging cast of characters to carry us through the buildup. But here there isn’t a lot of effort made to endear us to the leads.
Further complicating matters, The Shade doesn’t give us much information to put the pieces together. For instance, we don’t get any significant context on why the father took his life. I understand that the picture is keen to convey the complicated aftermath rather than dwelling on the reasons why. But the patriarch lights a headstone on fire and then shoots himself. That’s a very intricate setup for a film that doesn’t have much interest in explaining what led up to that fateful development.
I think a picture that favors commentary over narrative development works far better in short form. And The Shade likely would have been more effectively realized as such. If you’re game to check out the film, The Shade out now in theaters.
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‘The Shade'
Summary
‘The Shade’ tackles compelling themes but lacks proper narrative structure.
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