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Released by: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Released on: March 19, 2013.
Director: Matthew Arnold
Cast: Dallas Roberts, Alison Eastwood, Anne Dudek, Maria Bonner
Year: 2012
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The Movie:
While it's a fairly basic ghost story at its core, Matthew Arnold's Shadow People is at least something reasonably original in a genre awash with found footage ghost stories. Interestingly enough, he takes modern technology and uses it by integrating it into the movie but it never tries to put us behind the camera and plays out more or less as a traditional movie in that regard.
As to the story, the movie introduces us to a late night talk radio show host named Charlie Crowe (Dallas Roberts). When we meet him, he's seen better days - he's divorced, his wife has moved on to greener (richer) pastures and his relationship with his son, Preston (Mattie Liptack), is stressed at the best of times. To make matters worse, Charlie's show has seen a serious drop in ratings and is on the verge of being cancelled. This starts to change when one night he gets a call from a seventeen year old male named Jeff talking about how he's afraid and how he's got a gun and will use it. A shot goes off, live on the air, but the next day we learn that the caller didn't shoot himself but at something on the other side of the room. Jeff is tossed into the hospital but dies the next night… under some rather odd circumstances as there didn't really appear to be anything physically wrong with him.
Charlie decides to take up the case on the air and at the risk of being exploitative, he does see an instant ratings boost. Regardless, he starts investigating things, starting with a package that was left for him by Jeff before he died. With some help from a CDC agent named Sophie (Alison Eastwood), he follows a few clues and winds up learning about some unorthodox studies that were done at the local university in the 1970s but which have been more or less left buried since. The deeper Charlie digs into the case the more people around him start dropping dead, all while Charlie himself starts to become increasingly paranoid of the shadows that share his house with him.
There are a few other twists and turns that we won't go into here but we won't spoil them, let's leave the synopsis rather vague for now. Fairly well paced and rather clever at times, Shadow People was a pleasant surprise. Look past the generic 'straight to video horror movie' style artwork and you'll find a somewhat subdued movie that, despite a couple of requisite jump scares, lingers with you a bit after it's over. Rather than reveal everything to the audience the movie ends in such a way that we're able to make up our own minds as to what Charlie was actually going through in the main story, but as we get to that point some eerie imagery and building tension help to keep us interested.
Well shot, the movie features a great performance from Dallas Roberts in the lead role. Supporting efforts from Alison Eastwood and Anne Dudek are fine and worth mentioning but the bulk of the work is done by Roberts and proves to be more than up for the job. As his character slowly but very surely starts to unravel, his performance becomes quite physical but it's never less than convincing. Though the movie purports to be based on real life events (do a Google search for SUNDS) and does a good job of integrating youtube footage and internet research into the storyline, it's never to the point where it takes away from the story. Though there are some spots where the script probably could have offered up more depth, this is otherwise quite a well made film and a sign of good things to come from director Matthew Arnold.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Shadow People looks about as good as it should on Blu-ray, framed here at 1.78.1 widescreen and presented in AVC encoded 1080p high definition. Detail is pretty solid and black levels are good. Colors are accurate during the brighter scenes but there aren't a lot of those and much of the movie has been sapped of brighter hues resulting in a movie that's often times pretty bleak looking - which makes sense, given that much of it takes place inside a dimly lit DJ booth or in the sparsely decorated house with the lights off. This is in keeping with the tone of the film and it more or less works in its favor. Color scheme aside, skin tones look good, nice and natural, and there are no issues with compression artifacts to note. This feels like an accurate representation of what the filmmakers were going for here.
The main audio option is a 5.1 Dolby TrueHD mix in the film's original English language, though removable subtitles in English SDH and Spanish are also included. No complaints here, really. If the audio isn't the most immersive it's definitely solid, particularly during the scenes involving paranormal activity. Dialogue stays clear and there are some very effective moments that use the surrounds to nice effect. The levels are well balanced and as you'd expect from a brand new movie like this there are no problems with hiss or distortion and this is an impressive and effective sound mix that suits the storyline rather well.
Aside from a few trailers for unrelated Anchor Bay properties that play before the main menu loads, the only extra on the disc is a twelve minute featurette entitled Shadow People: More To The Story. It's basically a collection of interview clips with an expert on SUNDS and someone who deals with it. There's really not much to it but it does further expand on some of the ideas that the feature explores.
The Final Word:
Though light on supplements, Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release of Shadow People looks and sounds pretty decent. As to the movie itself? It's often pretty clever and occasionally spooky, if never quite terrifying. It definitely earns points for trying something different with its inclusion of modern day technology in its plot and it's nice to see someone trying something other than a 'found footage' movie when it comes to ghosts. Despite the fact that it isn't quite 100% convincing nor all that terrifying, it's creative enough that ghost movie buffs might want to check it out, it made for an enjoyable watch.
