Part of me was intrigued before watching 'The Shadow Effect'. It sounded interesting with a great concept, but it did look like a not very well made, ridiculous and by the numbers film with not particularly good actors so there was a little apprehension. Saw 'The Shadow Effect' anyway out of curiosity, being intrigued by the idea and having been a lot of low-budget films recently (most not very good to put it lightly).

''The Shadow Effect' managed to be worse than expected, even with mixed expectations. It started off pretty well, giving off the sense that maybe the film won't be bad and be better than it seemed. This didn't stay for long though and it is something of a shame. After the opening, the film went down south catastrophically very quickly and never recovered or improved. Actually got pretty much worse as it progressed.

On a visual level, 'The Shadow Effect' looked shoddy. Drab and simplistic, with haphazard editing, far from slick photography and very artificial-looking visuals on the whole.

The sound/soundtrack are intrusive and obvious with no variation and the direction has no sense of atmosphere or pacing, nothing to be thrilled by and nothing much engaging.

Script is awkward-sounding and ponderous, with lines that do make one cringe. A lot of it is gibberish and juvenile, with a stilted improvisatory feel that shouldn't have made it past draft stages.

On top of that, the story goes through the motions with no tension, suspense or thrills, a lot of intelligence-insulting ridiculousness, implausibility and pacing so dull that it makes a reasonably short length much longer. It is very derivative and parts also felt incomplete. The action sequences are more preposterous and by the numbers than they are thrilling or fun, a big problem for a film so heavy on this aspect. The terrible way they look also hinder them.

Characters are basically every stereotype in the book it seems and are one-dimensional caricatures with no likeability or development and with the inability to behave logically. The acting is very poor all round, particularly from Cam Gigandet, again showing no acting range of any kind. He and anaemic Jonathan Rhys-Meyers have zero chemistry together and their dialogues have no naturalness or believability whatsoever.

In summary, bad film in almost every way. 2/10 Bethany Cox

It's not easy for an actor to get out of a certain pigeon hole. And while it's mostly women that are reduced to their looks, it also can happen to male actors. In this case it's Cam Gigandet, who many might remember or know as a regular in the show OC.

He gets a vehicle here, a movie that has a really good premise. And he also has a veteran by his side with Michael Biehn. Still the story has flaws and the character is not fully developed. But if you like Science Fiction action movies that are a bit off and low budget, this is one you can check out. High concept idea, decently produced and acted. You could do worse

JRM looks ridiculous. The script and writing are bad.

This is an action movie with almost no action sequences, but a nicely mature Cam Gigandet is our hero and he is filmed shirtless making love, freaking out, hugging a toilet, being brainwashed. Good butt shots as well.

There is a weird, hard to follow, scifi resurrection plot.

Cam's acting is not bad. JRM acting accent hair is rather atrocious, but it looks like his scenes were shot in 1-2 days.

This was shot in Atlanta GA and has state tax credits written all over it. "We call them shadows, but yes they are ____."

Watch it for Cam's butt and chest and overall attractiveness. Howl with laughter for everything else.