Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Awaken the Shadow Man (2018)'

It's official. Gravitas is my favorite shoe-string production studios since Full Moon. They just try so damn hard to make quality horror out of nothing. And they come so damn close too. They're always just on the edge of genius but can't quite deliver.

Awaken the Shadowman had all the right stuff. It had a smart premise a creepy mythos, a brilliant sense of story. Unfortunately, the execution just fell flat on its face. I just can't give it my recommendation.

What it fucked up... Pacing. Good GOD this movie was so fucking slow. They drag out every god damn scene with needless fluff. It's just so fucking boring. Its like every scene was a fucking exposition with dull dialogue. The problem was, there really wasn't enough story there to fill 90 minutes. Maybe 45 minutes but not feature length. This might have been a great short. So instead, they just went around in god damn circles, revisiting the same information over and over and over again. They'd introduce a character, do fuck all with them, then come back to them again. They'd introduce new information, then rehash it, sometimes more than once, every time like it was new information. Mind you, it had a linear story, so back tracking just gives you a sense of frustration.

This movie also didn't really sell it's premise. I'll get into more detail on this latter but needless to say, the culminating motivations of the lead actress simply was not given enough time to blossom.

Nothing really saved it. The acting was okay, the atmosphere was the best they could work with, and the practical and special effects got down right silly from time to time.

And now, for the final nail in the coffin.

*SPOILERS!!!*

The monster was dick fingers in a zentai suit... What the fuck is that shit? Fucking seriously! When it was just an ominous shadow in the background, it worked perfectly. But then the director got really fucking showy. I mean REALLY fucking showy. When I could see dick fingers prosthetic rubber fingers wiggling about during some of the scenes, I couldn't help but chuckle. How the fuck am I supposed to take this seriously? You can't get showy with practical FX that bad. That's the whole point of shading and filters. If it's bad, and you know you can't do better, don't make it center stage.

The female lead's development throughout the movie just doesn't sell. She goes from turning down an indecent proposal by her brother-in-law's wife (cause if anything will save your shitty movie, it's implied pornographic lesbian sexuality. AmIright?) to "LET'S SELL OUR BABY TO THE SHADOW DEMON FOR AN NON-DISCREPID LEVEL OF WEALTH AND YOUTH!"

Look, I get that having kids is a bummer, but they didn't even touch on the tender bond between a mother and her child. I mean, this bitch was shown no clear evidence of any real benefit and she just chucks the baby off to the wayside. And what's crazier is she honestly just expects her husband to go through with it too. Absolutely none of that was well thought out. There's a ton of implied stuff. The fact that they're struggling as a family, the fact that she clearly wasn't ready to be a mother. But it's not like she was suffering from postpartum depression or something. They basically just make her suddenly evil without prompt or motivation.

And that's the tragedy that is Gravitas. This movie really did seem like it had a genuinely decent premise and well developed mythos. There's a solid story to tell here, but they just couldn't deliver. Give it a pass.