By Geno McGahee
A journalist, Carmen (Cindy Sampson), is not getting any good assignments from her editor and has found something of interest. There are people missing in Poland and she wants to go there and find out what happened with them. Her editor vehemently opposes this, but she, along with her co-worker, Sara (Meghan Heffern) and boyfriend, Marcus (Aaron Ashmore), head to Poland to do some investigation, and this is a horror movie, so you know that they will find something evil.
When they reach Poland, they get a very cold response from the people and are told to go back to where they came from. Carmen knows she is close and proceeds despite the warning and finds a fog engulfing the woods. She and Sara both enter the fog and find a demonic statue. After taking a photo, the statue turns its head and looks at them. They quickly run out of the fog and reunite with Marcus, but now the entire town, an apparent cult, is on their heels.
A young girl finds the trio and agrees to help them out but she locks them in a mine where they discover coffins with the dead bodies of those that are missing. They escape, but they cannot run forever and are eventually captured and that is where the fun begins.
The group is now wearing long black robes and some appear to be turning into demons right in front of them, but there are some twists here that I will get into.
***Spoilers From This Point On***
Sara is killed, sacrifice style. Marcus and Carmen escape and hold up in a house and that’s when the truth is revealed. Anyone that sees that statue becomes possessed and Carmen is now a threat to everyone. She kills the couple that lives there and guts a young boy, and now the cult arrives and they now prove to be a group of warriors for the good guys, fighting demons.
The showdown between demonic Carmen and the cross carrying cult was outstanding. I liked when Marcus realized the state of his girlfriend and helped the cult to defeat her, even though she tried to fool him by returning normal form and pleading for her life. The good guys win and Marcus is released, since he never saw the statue and wasn’t affected. Marcus did ask one of the cult members what the fog and statue was about and he responded that the land had been cursed and that was the entire explanation.
I really liked this movie, but the “cursed” explanation was pretty poor and I was waiting for the photograph of the statue to come into play and infect the world, and it didn’t. It was very well paced and interesting, but the ending just left a lot to be desired.
THE SHRINE is a very good modern horror film. I really enjoyed it despite its problems.
Rating: 7/10
