Sunday, June 17, 2012

Shallow Ground (2005)

As the last boxes are being packed up at a small town Sheriffs station that is closing, a naked boy drenched in blood and clutching a knife wanders into the building.  The boy appears to be in a daze and won't speak.  Strange things start to happen after his arrival.  At times he bleeds profusely. The blood spills across the floor but it seems to have a life of its own as the boy can make it move at will.

The Sheriff is convinced that the boy has done something horrible.  Not sure why he doesn't consider that perhaps something awful has happened to the boy, traumatized him and sent him in shock.  If he's a killer, its unlikely that he'd go to the police rather than trying to hide his crime.

The Sheriff and deputies spend their last day in the office trying to figure out who the boy is, what happened to him, and what else is going on in the town as people start disappearing.

While the premise is interesting, the trailer is effective, and the music is creepy, overall the movie fails as there are too many plot holes.  A bus breaks down on the only bridge out of town as a convenient plot device to keep anyone from leaving.  The Sheriff doesn't notice the stench of dead bodies when they are in the next room.  The killer, who seems to have lead a normal life, not only wants revenge but apparently is completely psycho since the victims are held together with fish hooks and sitting them at the dinner table.  Also the killer needs strength to tie up the victims and hang them from trees, as well as stealth to sneak up on them. Once the killer is revealed, I'm not buying that the killer could do any of that.

No comments: