Sunday 12 August 2012

DVD review: Shapeshifter (2005)


A demonic shapeshifting beast terrorizes a maximum security prison. As inmates and guards alike try to avoid falling victim to the flesh-eating baddie, they find themselves struggling to solve the mystery of the creature in a frantic attempt to survive. Shapeshifter is written by A. Everett Howe and Gregory Lemkin who also is the director. The acting is pretty bad, the camerawork and editing is decent. The filmmakers use the same set as in Dead Men Walking, both movies were shot at the same time and are prouced by The Asylum, but somehow they fail to exploit it successfully. And despite a running time of 80 minutes, despite having a lot of potential this gets boring after awhile and they reuse the same footage of the creature eating a dead guard (sounds more graphic than it is) several times. There's no atmosphere, no tension and no scares. There is some gore, practical make-up fx and it´s pretty decent. The creature design, old school man in a suit, is decent. In the T & A department I can report som topless nudity.
This review is based upon the german region 2 DVD release from Video Pool, english audio is available.
Rating: 1 out of 7. I like the premise but the flick is just dull and pretty bad, actually it´s a very lame movie, no profanity, it could have been much gorier and the group prisoners reaction to a attractive female guard being left alone with them is strange and unrealistic, I think she would have a VERY bad day. On a positive note I do like that they use the man in a suit design for the creature. Definitely not recommended.

/JL

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