This strange horror offering has a blood-spattered teenage boy showing up at a police station. What happened to him, and how does this event tie in with the murder of a girl the previous year? This off-beat little horror film came out of the blue (for me at least),because prior to seeing it in my local video store, I'd never heard of it. I rented it, and let me say that while it's not the best horror flick I've seen lately, and it certainly does have it's fair share of problems, it's definitely a breath of fresh air from most of the crap released into cinema these days that people call "horror". Considering it's tiny budget, "Shallow Ground" pulls off some pretty impressive stuff. The film is shot on 16mm but looks great visually, I was shocked afterwords when I found out it WASN'T shot on 35mm. The actors were hit and miss but that's to be expected from a film of this caliber. Steve London's score is very good too, nicely dark and foreboding. One of the best aspects of the film though are the great make-up effects by Patrick Magee. There's lots of disgusting-looking corpses and blood, and the death of the Helen (Patricia McCormack) was great. There's almost no CGI used in this film (thank God) and horror fans will most certainly be pleased by the gruesome set pieces on display here.

Still, there's some stuff that didn't work so well too. The plot takes a long time to unfold and really isn't that interesting. The characters were mostly 1-D, and the ending, though cool, makes no sense whatsoever. This is an odd little horror film, certainly not bad but not *quite* great either. Still recommended, though, as it most certainly is unique and well-done.

7/10.

While preparing to shutdown a sheriff's station in the woods, the deputies Stuart Dempsey (Stan Kirsch) and Laura Russell (Lindsey Stoddart) are surprised by a naked teenager covered in blood and with a hunt knife in his hand. The boy is arrested and Sheriff Jack Sheppard (Timothy V. Murphy) is summoned by his assistant. While investigating the identity of the boy, Jack hopes to solve the disappearance of many people in the area, including his girlfriend. When the identity of the boy is disclosed, the mystery increases.

The beginning of "Shallow Ground" is promising and intriguing, and I recalled the "X-Files" series. Unfortunately, in a certain moment, it seems that director and writer Sheldon Wilson lost the control of his creation and the story goes nowhere, becoming very confused and having an unsatisfactory and disappointing resolution. In the end, there are three plots: the lead one, about the old lady that lost her husband and daughter in the dam, blames everybody and "builds" a new family of her own: the secondary one is about the torment sheriff , that suffers for not having saved the blond girl. The third one is about a drug dealer that was executed in the city. For some unexplained reason, the dead seek revenge, and all the people killed in the woods somehow combines in one gore being. The same happens with the drug dealer. But why so much complication, wouldn't it be easier if the boy had gone directly to the killer's house and stop her crimes the same way the dealer did with the officer that shot him? The last scene is simply an awful hook for a possible sequel. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Terra Rasa" ("Shallow Ground")

This movie badly suffers from the M. Night Shyamalan syndrome, meaning that writer Sheldon Wilson desperately tries to be SO mysterious, SO ambitious and SO convoluted that, when the climax eventually approaches and the time has arrived to finally come up with some adequate explanations, the script can't possibly provide any more surprise twists or revelations that are strong enough to live up to the expectations that got built up. "Shallow Ground" isn't too bad, but it tries to be too much. The construction of a nearby dam has finished since a few weeks now, and almost the entire town of Shallow something is preparing to move out and start a new life elsewhere. The local police force as well nearly finished packing up everything in boxes when suddenly a young box walks into the station, entirely covered in blood. The kid won't stop bleeding the blood of at least three different dead persons; his fingerprints match those of multiple missing persons and he inconspicuously covers the walls with macabre messages like "No One Leaves". He appears to be a supernatural entity, the hybrid of several restless souls and unsolved murder cases that combined their strength to return from the dead and help the local authorities solving the mystery. Okay, so we've got a fairly original premise, a thoroughly moody atmosphere and literally gallons worth of blood (though very little on screen massacres). Then what went wrong and why isn't "Shallow Ground" ranked among the finest hidden horror gems of recent years? Well, partly because it was poorly promoted upon its release, but mostly because the film is incoherent as hell and ultimately fails to deliver. Besides, the basic plot outline may sound potentially fascinating but the story loses at lot of its impact very fast. "Shallow Ground" halfway suddenly swifts from being a supernatural mystery to an ordinary serial killer movie, and not exactly a very plausible or original one, I may add. Also, it's never good for a horror film to raise more questions than it can answer. But there are several positive remarks to make as well. "Shallow Ground" is a low-budget film, but it's nicely photographed and benefits from great make-up effects as well as competent acting performances.