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Shadow Puppets (2007)

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Overall Rating 48%
Overall Rating
Ranked #6,796
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Eight strangers with no memories find themselves trapped in an abandoned facility. As they desperately try to find answers and escape, their own Shadows attempt to consume them from the darkness. --IMDb
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Review by Crispy
Added: July 23, 2009
There's not a whole lot of originality left in the world of horror; but I have to say, I don't recall a whole lot of movies about a homicidal shadow.

In a white, padded cell, a woman awakens as if from a nightmare. To make matters even worse, she has no idea where she is, or even who she is. After hearing something horrific tearing down the hallway outside of her cell, the power goes out for a second, which resets the electronic locks. After running into a few more prisoners, all of which are suffering from full blown amnesia, they began to realize their predicament is all the more unsettling when they can not find a single employee. And to make matters worse, one of their new found friends is acting just a wee bit suspicious. Unsure of who they can trust, the shit finally hits the fan when they encounter what made that hellish sound from before, an entity they dub the shadow creature. This vaporous apparition attacks from the shadows, and is going to make finding answers, or rather staying alive long enough to find them, very difficult.

Let's start off by talking about that originality I mentioned earlier. Well, it was blatantly pissed away. First of all, the killer shadow bit wasn't used much at all. Sure, it had one kill as a shadow, but it spends the rest of its time buzzing around as a killer black cloud. Now, I admit I've never watched the show, but from what I understand a killer black cloud is featured quite heavily on the extremely popular show, Lost. Plus, the creature's squealing roar was lifted directly out of another movie. For the life of me I can't remember where, but I'm positive I've heard it before. But then, it really doesn't matter, as the thing probably got less than fifteen minutes of total screentime; the grand majority of which is the final confrontation. With the creature itself all but a subplot, we're left with a bunch of amnesiacs wandering around trying to figure out what their situation is and how to escape. It's a poor man's Cube without the traps. Before it was over, I had lost count of the number of "seen it" moments.

Considering these people are basically all the movie had to stand on, you'd think they put a bit more effort into it. Our two main characters are played by Jolene Blalock and James Marsters. They were both halfway decent, but not nearly enough to carry the film. Especially since Marsters kind of lost it in the finale. In the supporting roles, Marc Winnick and Diahnna Nicole Baxter just annoyed me time and time again, and the foil aspect they tried to create between the two characters was a complete failure. The last two, incidentally the only ones who were the least bit enjoyable were Tony Todd's anger prone convict and of course, Natasha Alam as the nymphomaniac.

Of course, you can't place all the blame on the people in front of the camera, since this picture was doomed the day the script was typed. The dialogue is loaded with some of the most unnatural conversations the world of cheap horror has to offer. It took a lot of will power to keep from coming right out and demanding "Who the hell talks like that?" And the storyline was just as shafted. We're treated to that tried and true ending where one character just comes out and explains everything in one long monologue, dodging around plot holes as he tells his tale. By far the worst offense this movie makes is also the simplest. It's mind numbingly boring.

Now that I've got the idea in mind, I'd like to see a movie about an actual killer shadow. It's a premise with a lot of potential. In the meantime, I'll throw this one a bonus point for some brief nudity, but don't waste your time. 1/10.
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