The Worst Film Ever

One of my all time favorites.

Good concept, poorly executed.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

THE SHRINE is a Canadian horror film set in Poland. To begin with the plot is nothing special, involving the usual trio of American tourists abroad who find themselves in trouble when they stumble upon a grove containing an ancient shrine that has something evil about it. The second half of the film gets a little more interesting by skewing the usual angles and builds to an impressively high octane climax.The problem with this film is the lack of budget. There isn't much money to go around so the director substitutes noise with quality. This is one of the noisiest horror films I can remember watching and particularly at the climax it gets very headache-inducing. Plus the usual EXORCIST clichés are played out again which is a bit wearying. On the plus side, there's some very graphic gore in this film and it's nasty stuff indeed, wince-inducing in places. Shawn Ashmore's twin brother Aaron stars.

So many things were wrong with this movie it's hard to know where to begin.First, the plot itself makes less than no sense. Basically this reporter chick decides she needs to cover the disappearance of an American backpacker in Poland because "no one else cares". OK, so that's stupid thing number one because, FYI, if you ever disappear in Poland, I can promise you the State Department and the Polish government are going to look for you. But no, Carmen the fearless investigative journalist, is convinced that the missing guy is one of a long line of tourist who have mysteriously disappeared in some obscure Polish village.So Carmen, super genius that she is, decides she's going to go check it out, even though her boss told her to drop it and assigned her to do a story about honeybees dying off in Oregon. Well,there's another super dumb plot point since the death of bee colonies actually is a real story, just not in the eyes of Carmen apparently.Next you're supposed to believe that Carmen, not only convinces an intern to accompany her to Poland and lie to their boss about it, but also tricks her photographer boyfriend into coming along without giving him a heads up about what she's doing. Of course, no one from Carmen's company figures out that she and the world's stupidest intern are hopping on planes to Poland, not Oregon. Yeah right, that's super believable...Naturally, about five minutes after they get to this obscure village things start going south. The boyfriend figures out he's been tricked by Carmen, whose master plan was to write such an amazing story about some random missing backpacker that her boss will forgive her for lying to him, bailing on her real assignment, and misusing company resources.And how does Carmen plan to bust this whole mystery wide open? Why by ignoring all the adults in the village in favor of pressing the first pre-teen girl she sees for info about what happened to the backpacker because that makes soo much sense! Lucky for Carmen, even though they are in some super rural village in Poland all the kid's magically speak enough English to communicate with her.Alright, so when everything starts to fall apart there's this whole thing with a perma-fog, a creepy statue in the fog that bleeds and curses people who look at it, as well as a bunch of religious dudes wandering around the village in full regalia looking menacing as they order everyone around. In addition to all that there's a shed in the middle of the forest that's actually an entrance to an underground mausoleum/shrine, a bunch of hackneyed religious symbolism, a whole lot of cheesy rituals, and the obligatory chase scenes in which the three Americans run around trying to escape the angry, seemingly backwards villagers.Basically, about half-way through this movie you're hoping everyone dies because you just want the whole thing to end. Anywho, to make a long, dumb, boring story somewhat shorter, the villagers are only killing people who get a look at the statue because it turns them into satanic monsters. So, as is so often the case, the evil villagers turn out to be the good guys, protecting the world from damnation one cursed tourist at a time. Though, honestly, even if she hadn't have been possessed by the devil, killing Carmen would have been a service to humanity.Equally as bad as the absurd and thoroughly unoriginal story line, was the dialog. I'm not sure how they finished filming this without someone screaming "Stop! No one talks like that!". Seriously, this movie had some of the most unnatural sounding dialog I've heard in a long time. For example, there was no way you were forgetting the characters' names because they repeated them in virtually every single line. Yep, nothing says "natural" like being alone with your girlfriend, but still starting each sentence with her name like she would forget who you were talking to if you didn't.Another major problem were the costume. To say they were cheesy really doesn't begin to do justice to the poor choices whoever dressed the actors made. Half the villagers looked as though they escaped from a Dungeons and Dragons convention, while the other half looked Amish.I sincerely cannot think of one charitable thing to say about this film. Personally, as a Polish American, I was appalled that they had to drag the country of my ancestors into this disasterpiece. This wasn't even bad enough to be funny, it was just bad all the way around.

Argh. I had read good reviews of this film, along the lines of "BETTER THAN IT HAS TO BE" or something, and I couldn't even finish the whole thing. I wish it were this easy to just slide off to Eastern Europe (the whipping boy of the cinematic world seems like) on a moment's notice, rent a car (I kept thinking- uh, doesn't this take a little more PLANNING? Getting an international driver's license- visas- shots- the whole bit) and then just roll up into town (if you want to call a bunch of ramshackle shacks, weird fog and a guy slaughtering a pig a town) investigating a disappearance when they should be investigating....uh, bees?The acting is wooden, and stupid. The protagonist, Carmen, sees visions- which I didn't stick around long enough to get an explanation on- and she is a journalist unhappy with the puff pieces she is enlisted to write. Apparently, she has to write an article on bees, and her boss thinks that's far more interesting than a missing person. Uh huh.So to rebel, she just HAS to go to Alvania (huh?) which is I guess supposed to be a district in Poland? Or more like Pre-Ceascescu Romania by the looks of it- all long-skirted peasants and somehow charmingly dilapidated buildings through which a little girl drifts dressed like in a fairy tale. Uh huh. Go to any small town in Eastern Europe and I will give you a million dollars if you can find little girls dressed like this. They will all be wearing glittery princess tshirts just like kids everywhere. And, you know, I must say, can we leave EE alone already? I mean, hasn't the torture porn "Hostel" type films already beaten this land to death? One would think that if you step east past Turkey you are either in danger of falling into a demonic fairytale or getting raped and tortured for kicks. I'd say more about this film but it isn't worth it. There are so many others worthy of your consideration. This one is just plain poorly made.

I wasn't going to write a review because I felt that the ones here pretty much give a good idea as to the type of film it is. However, as I read many of the comments, I could see how VERY polarized the reviews are.So, I thought it might be helpful to TRY to give a general description to help people to determine whether they would enjoy it or not. Basically, this is the kind of movie that is ultimately rather simple and mostly ambiguous until the end. Some people here found it kind of boring, stupid, and confusing and really hated it. However, if you notice, it seems that most people here did like it; at least that is the way it seemed to shake out to me. I think the basic vibe and atmosphere of the film grabbed a lot of people and resonated with them, thus the strong positive reactions. But, apparently, not with all... So, what is the dividing factor?I liked the film and found it to be very creepy and suspenseful. But, I am the kind of person who REALLY likes atmospheric, ambiguous movies, probably because I have an EXTREMELY vivid imagination. So, my mind quite easily fills in all the supposed 'empty places' with more Horror and mood, even when things are not being explained very well. Also, you are VERY much left in the dark as to exactly what is going on right up until the end; so, if you are easily intrigued by this kind of Mystery, then you would be more likely to get caught up in it.Please note, the movie takes place in a foreign land. So the people pretty much ONLY speak their language and there are NO subtitles. This was clearly done DELIBERATELY to UP the Mystery quotient and to keep the audience guessing and wondering what the HELL is going on. And it REALLY works! You may or may not like that.So, all in all, this film is pretty much a simple, although effectively made, Old-School Horror film, made with kind of an Old Fashioned atmospheric style, not unlike some of the old really Gothic Hammer films, but more contemporary. Also, VERY importantly, it is religiously themed; some people either really love that type of film or they really don't, so keep that in mind.It is kind of difficult to explain this in a way to help others to see whether they would enjoy this movie or not. But, I would say that IF you are the kind of person who VERY EASILY AND QUICKLY gets caught up in a mystery where you DON'T really quite know what is going on, AND if you do like kind of Old-School, atmospheric, religiously themed Horror stories, THEN you have a good chance of enjoying it.I hope this helps...