DVD REVIEW: SHADOW WORLD: THE HAUNTING OF MYSTI DELANE / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: DANIEL E. FALICKI / SCREENPLAY: WARREN COYLE, JEFFREY PALMER / STARRING: PERI JILL PHILLIPS, LIZ NOLAN / RELEASE DATE: TBC
After a tragic incident within her own past, a young woman is living in isolation in a shack out in the middle of nowhere. She has grown to loathing the outside world and is taking solace in transporting her mind own into a dream world where she can be happy and have no outside interaction. However, a mysterious shadowy creature is invading her world and haunting her at every moment. Soon, her estranged sister arrives, knowing more than she’s letting on, and agrees to help her out in stopping the creature.
Shadow World does delve into some classic horror movie tropes with the use of a dilapidated house, monsters lurking within shadows, supernatural worlds and a character that has unusual psychic connections with the threat imposed upon her. Those conventions and devices aren’t so cliché here as perhaps they might be in a modern horror movie, but there isn’t anything that is new or exciting to surprise us. The whole film seemed a bit like a short movie extended, and there was the sense of the idea being dragged out to fill its targeted running time. Plus, there didn’t seem to be any real ending as it closed so abruptly, so a solid conclusion would’ve been appreciated.
However, it isn’t going to offend anybody, it’s solidly put together for what budget they had, the music is superbly haunting, and the performances are perfectly fine. Plus, the diary entries detailing the troubled protagonist’s plights, her addiction to her dream world and her spite of modern life, were brilliantly compelling and created a perfect insight into her disturbed mind. It’s just a shame we were just shown snippets of this and that is wasn’t delved into more.
Shadow World: The Haunting of Mysti Delane isn’t something that’s going to reinvent the horror genre in the same way as Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook recently, but for what budget they had, it is solidly made and it does have a good idea at the heart of it, even if it is stretched out to a feature-length movie.
Special Features: TBC
SHARE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW OR ON TWITTER @STARBURST_MAG
Find your local STARBURST stockist HERE, or buy direct from us HERE. For our digital edition (available to read on your iOS, Android, Amazon, Windows 8, Samsung and/or Huawei device – all for just £1.99), visit MAGZTER DIGITAL NEWSSTAND.
CLICK TO BUY!
MORE FROM AROUND THE WEB:
