Cast – Julianne Moore, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Jeffrey DeMunn
Directors – Mans Marlind, Björn Stein
Writer – Michael Cooney

With slick and snaky production values, directors Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein create a gleefully bonkers thriller. As a result, there are moments of real terror even as the story gets increasingly ridiculous.

It is a very daft supernatural thriller starring Julianne Moore and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The film was shot almost two years ago and there’s the vague whiff of studio disappointment and postponement about it. Of course, this could all be mere suspicion, but judging from the content, there remains doubt.

Shelter suffers from an increasingly ludicrous script that by the end manages to lose all interest. The climax is meant to be chilling, but proposes such an absurd idea, it becomes funny instead.

Things begin intriguing enough when Dr. Cara Jessup (Julianne Moore) is introduced to her father’s new patient, Adam (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). Jessup is a great sceptic when it comes to matters of multiple personality disorder and her doctor father isn’t.

Shelter is pure b-movie bunkum from start to finish. The audience is meant to buy a character who is a Christian moraliser and a rational scientist. Of course that’s not the major problem. Not even her husband’s pointless death can sway her devoutness – which is never really explained or expressed. We’re just told.

The mystery surrounding Adam is initially suspenseful – the audience and Cara know very well he’s not the harmless simpleton he’s making out, but why? The ending, naturally, reveals all.

Michael Cooney’s script is beyond terrible and enters a new realm of cinematic shitness all of its own making. There’s also a major, major problem with a segment supposedly shot by a character in the 1920s. Firstly, the lighting is all wrong. For an amateur effort, it looks like they got Karl Freund over from Germany to do some expressionist effects and secondly, the camera is far too mobile…what’s making it move? They didn’t have handheld cameras back then!

As mentioned, there is a sense of knowing to Shelter – that’s its all just a bit of b-movie fun. Yet it cannot excuse just how dreadful the film is. The idea of an immortal serial killer does not bode well for the audience or any potential franchise run-off.

What on earth possessed Julianne Moore to make this clunker is a most salient question. Perhaps they’ll never be an answer. Now that’s scary.