 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. This is for the 2019 film The Shed and it is a shutter exclusive. It comes out on Thursday, August 27th on Shutter Streaming Service. So since this is a review that is up before it's actually hitting shutter and since it's just hitting shutter and hasn't really been seen other places, this is a no spoilers review. So you can safely watch this and get all the information that you need from my perspective and not have spoilers really, except for kind of some thematic stuff, but that's about it. Although it's not really much of a spoiler, it's very in your face, very early in the film. So anyway The Shed was directed by Frank Sabatella who did the film Blood Knight, the legend of Mary Hatchet. I've not seen this. Other than that, he's just done a bunch of short films. That's the only feature-length film that he's done. Written by Sabatella and Jason Rice. Apparently the screenplay was written by Sabatella. Jason Rice came up with the story. So yeah. So quick synopsis for me to give you just because I'm not doing spoilers with this. So this is a film about basically a vampire that ends up in The Shed, The Shed, of a high school student and how he ends up dealing with it and it ties into the fact that this is a bullied kid. So there is a big focus in the film on bullying and I will say up front I love the idea of tying vampires and bullying because there's a really good connection there where vampires feed off of people with you know by drinking their blood obviously which is their life essence and bullies feed off of people by causing fear by depleting them emotionally and their self-esteem as well. So there's a lot that was really good potential wise with that setup and there is a really good setup in this film early on. Like the opening scene is pretty good and is attention-grabbing and tells you immediately vampire. So that's not really a you know it's not really a spoiler because it within the first minute you know it's vampire. So I love that concept of bully and vampire coming together. That said I don't like this film and you know I know I have been saying you should just watch you know every film is worth watching at least once so that at least you can make up your mind on whether you like it or not and I would still say that for this because there might be some people out there who really like this but if it's a scenario where I'm I personally am not you know watching all the screeners for shutter to do these reviews and I'm talking to myself in the past I would tell myself don't waste your time. The script is not good in my opinion. It felt like there were once again great concept there's a lot that could have been done with this I really think it also could have just maybe been a short film I think because Sabatella has done so many short films this feels like things got really clunky trying to actually expand something that should have been a short film probably into a feature length film. It's slow it's meandering it loses it seems to lose its point at many times when it goes into the bullying portion of things it kind of beats that to death and you needed a lot more of the vampire stuff and a lot less of the bullying because people get it we all know about bullying you already gave us enough of it in the beginning then you should kind of step back from it. I don't like this film I just don't like it lots lots of problems but I will say from a technical standpoint pretty good. I think Sabatella as a director has a lot of promise his directing is good I just don't think he should be doing screenplays at least based off of this one film I haven't seen his other stuff so I can't you know say blanket statement he should never write it's just he shouldn't have written this screenplay should have had someone else do that maybe Jason Rice the guy who came up with the story should have had to go at it the other thing is it should have been cut down a bunch they should have edited the film down a bunch because there are a lot of scenes that are stretched out too long a lot of scenes that just feel like that it's like okay you know we understand let's let's move on now so they should have been more heavy-handed with editing some of the stuff down it just the whole film just feels like it's consistently not going anywhere when there's so many great opportunities to get to some place and to incorporate the vampires more and just so many great opportunities and there are lots of moments where you it builds up and it gets you to a point where you're like this is it something's gonna happen we're getting there and then it just backs back down and it's such a tease and that's consistent now in the very end of the film there is something that's kind of interesting it does finish in an interesting kind of way but at that point it's too late it's too way too little way too late I mean the movies a little bit over just minutes over an hour and a half it's it's a short film I mean it's a short it could be a good a relatively good short film it's just it does not work as a feature film at least the way the script was was written so let me go over some other stuff pretty like I said pretty solid setup I like the the intro scene looks good except it's a little bit too dark they need to lighten up a little bit more if you are gonna watch this film maybe watch it you know without any natural light coming in because scenes like that will be easier to see although there aren't a lot of scenes like that where you you know need to see a lot more the beginning it actually this film early on with its tying into bullying and everything and kind of actually how the events start in the beginning of the film maybe think a lot of the Adam Egypt Mortimer film some kind of hate which I would say some kind of hate is a better film than this in my opinion definitely but and I have problems with that film too but it's a better film but it feels very similar it seems like maybe there were some things taken from it because there are some other things that you see are taken from other films including there's one scene in particular which I enjoyed it reminded me of the original Fright Night which I thought was potentially a nod to Fright Night I won't tell you what it is if you're gonna watch the film and then there was another portion where they took one of my favorite quotes from sleep away camp I don't know if this was actually taking it from sleep away camp but I recognize the the line from sleep away camp and I would like to think that they legitimately took it from that because they're a fan of it but I like that that kind of made me laugh I enjoyed that so the directing like I said is actually pretty good the camera work is really good probably the best thing about this film is the camera work very smooth great cinematography very nicely done and that's what I'm saying like Sabatella like good director I think he should just direct other people's scripts and the camera work very smooth very nice soundtrack is actually pretty solid too I did dig on the soundtrack I already talked about that there's something that happens that places the main character early on in a pretty tough spot so you kind of end up wondering how is this individual going to kind of maneuver this landscape and kind of has to deal with an issue here and deal with an issue here and but they don't come together in all that interesting of a way it could have been done a lot better much like I'm saying you know all the stuff with the script there there's a lot of stuff that could have been done a lot better it kind of seems like there was this base concept and they just didn't know how to do it but the script was written anyway and it just the film kind of seems to not matter in my opinion for that reason but like I said you know maybe some other people will watch this film and be like I actually loved it and that's good I hope that happens because you know there are plenty of films out there that other people hate that I really like and I like to support independent film too so I always feel bad when I'm kind of dumping on a film like this but I'm gonna give my honest opinion so it does seem like a bunch of scenes go on go on too long a bit too long that should have been cut down there are actually were a few jump scares in this they got me and I was impressed with that because jump scares usually don't get me so they did a good job of kind of setting up the soundtrack leading up to it and setting up the environment and actually kind of getting me to two occasions in the film with a jump scare so that was cool there's a conversation between friends about a moral decision in this that actually feels really really forced and even that they have to have this conversation feels very very forced as well it doesn't really feel natural to the story natural to the situation and that's another thing about it is that a lot of dialogue in this is awkward and there's a tendency for characters to shift focus to something in the scene that definitely would not have their focus at that time so for that reason that's another instance of the writing just wasn't there and it's making characters do very unnatural things that don't make sense for what's actually going on on the screen like there will be something going on that if someone came into the scene they would be focusing on that definitely they look at that basically or deal with that slightly and then they focus on something else that it just feels like there's a huge disconnect and you're just like but what about that like you would definitely be focusing on that not what you're talking about right now like it's crazy it's weird it just it just doesn't jive it's very disconnected it keeps feeling like the film is holding back you get led right up to the moment that could really get interesting that things could really be happening and then it retreats from that and that's why I say it's very much a tease they keep doing that there are a few moments where they then give you a payoff but it's a very little payoff it's very quick it's and there's not enough of it and there are too many moments where it leads you right up to something potentially great and then just walks away from it there's some already talked about the awkward dialogue finally got a payoff scene at about the hour mark so the beginning is pretty good there's some good payoff in the very very beginning and then you don't get another real payoff scene until about the hour mark not good the movie also starts feeling very repetitive much like maybe my review because I keep saying some of the same things about the script so my apologies there is a bit of a twist in this that serves to show how far a character is actually willing to go which is really supposed to stand in contrast to the main character and there's they kind of had to have a shared situation in a way and they deal with things very very differently so I think that's actually like an inspired a nice inspired moment in the film but with everything else going on in the movie it kind of gets lost because there's so much else that's not that good so it's one of those things again where there's a good idea there there's a really good idea a really good concept but it just ends up feeling like it doesn't matter because things kind of get lost with everything else going on went wrong in my opinion with the story and the writing and the dialogue and all that kind of stuff so it's it's it's unfortunate there's a tad bit of interest in the end but once again it's too little too late at that point it has a strong element of bullying and how escapable it is for some and it also focuses on one of the big root causes of bullying which is judging other people and I kind of like that they bring that up in a conversation at one point because we all judge people to some degree or another and I think it was good to kind of have it point out that you know it's not just about baseless bullying it starts with judging people and can end up working to bullying so I did like that aspect of it but once again it kind of takes this problem of bullying and it just beats it to death in the film they needed to you know less is more walk it back a bunch would have been better and yeah like I said using the vampires with the bullying is a really cool concept and could have been done really really well it just doesn't happen here unfortunately so that said hopefully some people are still interested in checking it out you can let me know your thoughts on the film so you can put it down in the comments and hopefully there are people who are like I really liked it because I like hearing that the people have differing opinions and tell me why you liked it because maybe I'm missing something I don't know but anyway gotta give it a rating real quick so out of five stars potentially with half stars in play I can only give it one and a half stars I was between one and a half and two stars because of the technical things I like like the soundtrack cinematography directing and for the most part the acting is pretty solid but it's just the script is such a problem and the film feels so long and drawn out and boring and you get teased so much and just don't get the payout one and a half stars I'm sorry but that's that's how I feel but anyway like I said comments let's talk about it do me a quick favor to hit that subscribe button and if 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