“Shadows Light” (2008)
Ever After Media
A Stephen Zimmer Film
Starring Tom Phillips, Tucky Williams, Cynthia Allen, Jessica Kline
Score: Technical: 20, Story: 10, Acting: 10, Overall Score: 13.3
If there’s one thing I’m really truly sick of in horror movies, beyond anything, beyond even the cheap “Saw” rip-offs and pointless torture-porn style of Eli Roth wannabes, it’s the cliché of the evil lesbian. She’s evil and pansexual so obviously she’s going to end up being not only evil but also inhuman in some form, and to be honest, it’s a stupid idea. Maybe 20 or 30 years ago the concept was titillating enough but nowadays it just screams of borderline desperate and a little bit homophobic and misogynistic to me. Unfortunately, that’s only the beginning of just how wrong this movie is.
I’ll admit to liking shitty movies. It’s no secret if you know me, I have a soft spot for movies that might be a touch the cheesy and bad side. “Toxic Avenger”, the “Wishmaster” movies, a TON of martial arts films, the list kind of goes on. However, there is definitely a line of how much I’m willing to forgive and this movie unfortunately is way over that line.
“Shadows Light” is the story of the exorcist priest Father Abelard, who can see the essences of demons and death. While on a much-needed vacation he’s drawn into a battle for souls against the “perfectly-possessed” millionaire Ashton Legares, who willingly gave himself up to be a demonic host, that ends up involving renegade angels, soul-draining demons, the power of choice and free will, and oddly enough, Djinn, or genies. Abelard must muster all the strength and faith he has if he and his allies are going to win what turns out to be the hardest battle he’s ever faced.
Literally drawing from aspects of “The Exorcist” franchise, “The Devil’s Advocate”, and a little bit of “Star Wars”, I knew hope was lost when I saw where most of the budget for this movie went, which was into the FX for flaming swords used in a terribly-staged swordfight between a mysterious silver-lame clad angel assisting our protagonist and the villain Legares, on what looks like Legares’ front lawn. And while on occasion bad acting can be saved by a self-awareness of cheesiness, this film has none of that, and is almost lost in its attempts at being wrapped up in itself, trying to craft a serious mythology when they should be embracing the fact that it’s a low-budget horror movie.
In the end there’s really only one thing that I can take away from this movie, and that’s the image of what I assumed was supposed to be the Grim Reaper wearing a mask I swear I’ve seen on a shelf at the Halloween store.
By Costa Koutsoutis
Just to put a couple of things in perspective on this film, as the opening paragraph is very misleading for those that have not yet viewed this film (or paid attention closely, as the reviewer apparently didn’t.)
The feminine character in question above was NOT a lesbian, but rather a succubus, and it is made very clear in the film that this character is neither heterosexual or homosexual, but simply a demon that is sexual in nature. Reviewer obviously didn’t comprehend this (even when viewing the scenes of male victims.)
Reviewer also didn’t bother to look a little further to realize that all masks were cast and designed by original artists. Didn’t get bought off of “halloween store shelves”.
While I admit that the sword fight was a simplistic in its staging, it was not on the front lawn of the historical mansion shown in the film, but pretty obvious that it was on the side or rear of that building (note consistent archtecture…I.E. One location).
To sum up, this movie was not a horror movie and reviewer should not have viewed it in this context. It was a fantasy movie in a contemporary setting.
It is up to the reviewer to either like or dislike it in this context, but some of the elements in this article were blatantly factually innacurate with regards to the scenes and story in this film.
Either the person above is one of a handful of people who’s seen the movie…or worked on it. There’s no way someone would devote that much time to such an insane/long response to a z-movie.
Sorry Tessa. I’m one of a “handful of people” who have seen the movie, and yes, the review merited a response because it makes a very outlandish claim in the first paragraph using words like homophobia and mysoginistic. I happened to like the movie. There is nothing “insane” about the response. It is merely thorough and I am sorry that it exceeded your attention span.
You’re right, “toxic truth” you’re totally exceeding my….
OOH A BUTTERFLY!