Shadow WalkersDirector: Dennis Iliadis
Screenplay: Bill Gullo
Starring: Rhys Wakefield, Logan Miller, Ashley Hinshaw, Natalie Hall
Year: 2013
Country: USA
Running Time: 92 mins
BBFC Classification: 15

Strait-laced David turns up at a friend’s house party, with his slacker mate Teddy, in order to try and patch things up with his ex-girlfriend, Jill, who he managed to right royally piss off a week or so before by kind of accidentally kissing a girl he thought was her; as you do! Meanwhile a strange meteorite has crash-landed nearby, upsetting all the electrics close-by and also creating some weird side-effects involving all the young party-goers.

Shadow Walkers (or Plus One as it was previously known) is the kind of film that’s tricky to review as one really can’t say much about the plot for fear of giving too much away. However, the film does involve [spoiler alert] doppelgangers of sorts and weird time ructions. But to say any more would be remiss of me.

Revolving around principally one location – that of the sort of house party you only find in movies (replete with podium dancing, naked human buffets, tennis played with balls of fire, and the sort of teenagers you’d only really see at modelling conventions) – and carrying the film off the back of one good idea, Shadow Walkers would probably have been better off as a 30 minute long short, rather than being dragged out to feature-length. That’s not to say it is uninteresting, but there are sections which feel like the film is just treading water, waiting for the next set-piece to pop along.

And there are a few cool set pieces involving characters meeting other versions of themselves (sort of), some pleasing female nudity and some decent electrical effects, but Shadow Walkers doesn’t really deliver once it hits its third act.

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The film has some decent enough acting (it also has some pretty poor acting too), an atmospheric score, and some stuff you won’t have seen before – any film where a naked human buffet karate kicks a groper into tomorrow can’t be all bad! But the problem is there’s just not enough substance to extend its limited idea to feature length, at least in my humble opinion. Plus I don’t think the filmmakers made the most of their good idea – they never really take it to the extreme, which could have been more interesting.

Things aren’t really helped by the lead character, David, who turns out to be a bit of a schmuck; one minute he’s professing undying love to his ex, and then the next minute he’s trying to do away with an early version of her that doesn’t agree with him. Within minutes he goes from being an alright kind of chap to a controlling, stalker-next-door kind of domestic psycho! Such traits don’t actually endear him to us… His bumbling sidekick, Teddy, is far more endearing; he just wants to get laid like any normal teenage male, and in the process shows he’s actually quite a caring sort of guy.

Shadow Walkers is definitely worth a watch; just don’t expect the air to shimmer and electricity to crackle when you watch it; well not for real, anyway!

Shadow Walkers has recently been released on DVD and is being distributed by Signature Entertainment. Extras-wise there was didly-squat on the review disc.

About The Author

After a lengthy stint as a print journalist, Justin now works as a TV and film producer for Bazooka Bunny. He's always been interested in genre films and TV and has continued to work in that area in his new day-job. His written work has appeared in the darker recesses of the internet and in various niche publications, including ITNOW, The Darkside, Is it Uncut?, Impact and Deranged. When he’s not running around on set, or sat hunched over a sticky, crumb-laden keyboard, he’s paying good money to have people in pyjamas try and kick him repeatedly in the face.

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