The Film
In broad daylight the idea of something unexplained creeping into your bedroom, paralyzing you with fear, and literally scaring you to death might seem implausible, maybe even laughable. But in the dead of night when you're all alone, it's a different story. Your mind is a powerful thing and it can play tricks on you... or maybe there really are creatures out there, hiding in the shadows, waiting to attack you in your sleep? Shadow People, new on Blu-ray and DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment, explores these questions, and the answers that it comes up with are downright spooky.
Shadow People is in itself an example of something that's nearly an urban legend: a subtle, scary entry in the "found footage" horror genre. The story begins with a clever frame: quick clips from YouTube of people reacting to a mysterious video supposedly posted on the site. The video has something to do with a sleep experiment, and it's clearly freaking people out. Cut to late night radio host Charlie Crowe (Dallas Roberts, "The Walking Dead"), who's captaining a sinking ship of a call-in show in a tertiary market, and dreaming of better things. He gets his break when a kid calls in one night seeking relief from shadowy creatures terrorizing him at night. "They sense when you're thinking about them..." he insists.
Charlie scoffs until the kid says he's got a gun. A shot is fired, and the line goes dead - and the skeptical Charlie gets pulled into a mystery. As he follows the trail of clues from his ill-fated caller, Charlie learns of a disastrous sleep experiment conducted at a local college - 100% fatality rate, that's not good - and as he slowly spreads the word on the "shadow people" he's learning more about, a string of deaths starts to follow in his wake. Are the shadowy night stalkers claiming victim after victim, or are people falling prey to an insidious mass paranoia? Will Charlie be next?
The film has some fun with the ethos of late-night radio. As Charlie talks on-air about his research, there's a quick montage of callers dialing in to deliver the usual round-up of crackpot theories: alien abduction, government conspiracy, mass hysteria. Morgellons even gets namechecked at one point. But Shadow People is generally pretty serious, and pretty creepy. There's no major moment of terror, but the pattern of small scares is likely to get under your skin, until you tense up during the nighttime scenes, start jumping at shadows, and dread seeing whatever might be reflected on the surface of a suddenly dark TV screen. Meanwhile, the film cleverly refuses to tip its hand about what's really going on; within the world of the story, the "shadow people target us because we believe in them" theory seems just as likely as the "deadly shared delusion/power of the mind" theory.
Additionally, segments tagged as "actual news report" shots actually look like second or third generation video transfers, and the filmmakers did a solid job making the old "research project" footage look like something that really was pulled out of a forgotten film canister. However, here's one quibble: there are a handful of subtitles scattered throughout the film, and they are small enough in scale that you may find yourself squinting or backing up and rerunning a segment or two to make sure you get everything.
The Sound
There's not much to report on here. "Shadow People" writer/director Matthew Arnold took a low-fi approach (no pun intended) in making the film, so there aren't many sound effects to consider. Dialogue passages are uniformly clear, even in the outdoor scenes and the "found footage" segments, and unlike many horror movies, you won't have to worry about the volume suddenly jumping in a cheap attempt to "goose" the viewer during scary scenes.
The Extras
There aren't a lot of bells and whistles on this disc. In addition to the film itself, you get one featurette, "Shadow People: More to the Story", which consists of a selection of interviews concerning "real life" shadow people-type experiences, and theories about such things happening around the world. Subtitle options include English SDH and Spanish.
Final Thoughts
There's an air of uncertainty about Shadow People that is reminiscent of William Freidkin's Bug. If you liked that film, it's worth checking this one out too. Of course, if you do, you may find yourself waking up in the middle of the night, peering into the dark and thinking about the Shadow People - and then wishing that you hadn't.
Product Details
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