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... View MoreShiver is one of those straight to stream movies, that you can easily miss, but I try to catch these when I can. 9 times out of 10 they suck but when I saw Danielle Harris was one of the stars, I knew it might be good and I'm pleased to say, her performance, along side John Jarratt, who plays our resident psycho, manages to take a bland story and turn it up a few notches. They are the strength of this movie and without their solid turns as Psycho Serial Killer vs The Final Girl, this movie would've fallen flat. When they aren't the focus (and thankfully they get most of the screen time in the second and third acts) Shiver becomes boring, with Casper Van Dien (what happened to you Casper?) as the cop on the case, and Rae Dawn Chong (the stewardess from Commando) as his partner, sleepwalking through their parts.It's a decent horror and the blood and terror builds as the movie goes along. It won't win any awards and I don't see it ending up on any Best Of lists, but the performances of the two lead actors make for an entertaining watch.
... View MoreWendy Alden has a boring job, lack of self-esteem, and a love life that she is reluctant to fully commit to. To make matters worse, a notorious serial killer is killing off women in her area. Wendy encounters the killer and manages to escape from a near-death experience. In order to survive, Wendy is gonna have to outsmart the killer at any cost. I only watched this because of Danielle Harris, I think the woman is immensely talented, even when she is dealing with sub par scripts. There isn't really anything overly original in this one, it's fairly derivative, but it does what it can with the material it has. It has a bit of an old school feel to it and isn't afraid to push boundaries. it also has some decent psychology in it as well. I did think they could have delved further into the serial killer's plight because he just seemed like a typical killer with family issues growing up. While I will give it credit for doing what it can with the material, it's too derivative to be that effective. How many times have we seen a perverted serial killer hack off beautiful women over the years? Its been done to death. There are a couple of questionable plot holes as well. How did the killer survive the car going off a cliff? It isn't fully explained. I wondered how the police could be so incompetent at times. Poor camera work at times is also an issue. Gore hounds should be at least content with the amount of violence. We get a nasty slit throat, and an eye is gouged out. Bloody corpses, gunshot wounds, and severed heads add to the fun as well. The harshest part may have been the scene with the pregnant woman, I thought that was effectively brutal. The acting is decent. Danielle Harris is excellent as our heroine. It was nice to see they didn't fully go the way of the damsel in distress. She is very vulnerable, but the strong heroine you'd expect her to be as well. John Jarrett ranges from hammy to good. There were times where I thought he was outstanding with his work, others where he was too OTT. He was a bit too whiny for me in all honesty at times. Casper Van Dien is OK. He got this weird smirk on his face at the weirdest times. An underrated favorite of mine, Rae Dawn Chong has a small part as wellI tried to be as fair as I could with this review. For what it is, I felt it did some good things. It can be suspenseful at times with some great acting (Harris especially) , but there is nothing that special about it. It's just another serial killer film that is carried by Danielle Harris. Harris fans and fans of the genre will find a few things to like about this one5/10
... View MoreShiver tells the story of Wendy (Danielle Harris), a young woman who is struggling with financial issues, has no time for dating, and has a not-so-close relationship with her mother. When Wendy is targeted by a killer known as The Gryphon (John Jarratt), she must use her smarts and the strength she never knew she had in order to escape from becoming a part of The Gryphon's "collection". Shiver is a film that is slightly different for Scream Queen Danielle Harris. Instead of starring in a typical by-the-numbers slasher film, she's now the prime focus of a psychopath, as well as the prime focus of the viewer. Harris by far gives her strongest performance in this film. We watch as her character tries to stay calm in times of great terror, but when the time comes for her to fight, Harris plays it off with great strength and ease. Beside Harris we have John Jarratt, whom is well-known for his role as the psychotic killer in the film Wolf Creek. Jarratt is back again playing another psycho. While he definitely played his role well, he really didn't put as much effort into it as he did in Wolf Creek. But he does do a good job of trying to show both sides of his character's personality. He can go from calm one moment, but then completely creepy and crazy the next. As for the film itself, it isn't really anything to write home about. It keeps a person interested mostly because of the cat and mouse game between our protagonist and antagonist. It's not one of the greatest films ever, nor is it a stand out film of it's kind, but it's at least worth checking out if one's ever interested. But the performances of Harris and Jarratt are what makes the film worth seeing, especially the strong performance by Harris.My rating: 6/10
... View MoreI was lucky enough to get to see this movie at a screening and I really don't want to say much about the movie because you need to see it yourself and be surprised. But it is very WELL worth your time to watch. Danielle Harris did an outstanding job with her role and the script was very well written. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and there were a lot of things I was NOT expecting to happen. Overall I would give the movie a 10/10 because it was good. I'm a big supporter of Indie films and respect them so much and I think this has to be one of my favorite B movies along with Stakeland which Danielle also happens to be in oddly enough. So give the movie a watch you won't regret it!
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