[Shiver]
Plot:Focuses on a lonely adolescent who moves with his mother to an isolated village. There, a series of odd events shock the community.

Cast:Junio Valverde, Blanca Suarez, Jaime Barnatán, Mar Sodupe, Roberto Enríquez, Berta Ros, Andrés Herrera, Paul Berrondo, Blanca Martínez, Francesc Orella, Josep Maria Domènech, Pau Poch, Anna Ycobalzeta.

My Thoughts:"Shiver" me timbers....was this movie boring.

Review:Shiver" follows a boy named Santi who may or may not be a vampire. He apparently has some sort of deadly allergy to sunlight, and therefore people at school think he's a freak. When his mom takes him to the doctor to check on how his disease is progressing, she's informed that it's getting worse, and not better. So she decides to move along with him to the Spanish countryside, an isolated village of sorts. Unfortunately upon their arrival, a sheep is killed...and that's followed by a string of human killings which people begin to try and scapegoat on her son as the investigation by the local law gets deeper.

But the real culprit is a wild girl lurking in the woods, who cannbalizes people. Can Santi stop her to clear his own name, before it's too late? This film let me just say is terrible for many reasons. The biggest being it doesn't manage to hold the viewers attention. It tries to be a story-driven horror movie, but the story isn't deep enough, interesting enough, or scary enough to really make someone want to follow it from beginning to end. I found myself very annoyed at times with this movie because I wished it'd give me something to be excited about.

But it never does. The characters are all boring, none of them very well written, and also extremely one-dimensional. It's like they're all the same people, just with different names. And what's with films constantly set in the Spanish countryside? Sure it's a creepy and eerie setting for a horror film, but no interesting people live there. And this translates badly into a horror film which needs character development to sell itself. Every horror film that takes place in the countryside manages to produce some of the dullest characters ever.

"Shiver" is no exception to that rule. Even the main characters, Santi and his mom don't bring anything positive to the table as far as character development is concerned. I did think the story swerve was intriguing though, yet disappointing. At first, when the sheep is killed...you kind of think that maybe the movie is gonna use the chupacabra myth for it's monster. But then it's eventually revealed the antagonist is a wild girl living in the woods.

Apparently she spent alot of time living in the wild regions of Africa whe she was sent away because she witnessed a murder which she shouldn't have by one of the men in the village. So being the wonderful parent of the year that she was, her mother sent her to Africa. The girl returned all screwed up, and now kills people while roaming and stalking the woods. That's it, that's the BIG REVEAL. The deaths aren't even up to par, and this movie offers no redeeming qualities whatsoever except for a few heartwarming scenes between Santi and his mother.

But beyond that, the film has no one to root for except Santi, as everyone in the village is a prick, and even Santi's mom eventually manages to get on my bad side from a character standpoint. The plot plays out in usual fashion, Santi figures out who the real killer is, tries to warn people, but of course they don't believe him because he's just a kid with a disability and he can't possibly be telling the truth about any of this.

And so it's up to Santi to solve the crime himself to draw attention to the real killer, and who's keeping that secret. Ho-hum, been there done that. Isn't every horror film involving kids like this? The kids see something fucked up, they tell, no one believes, and they storm back to bed angrily until the next morning where the process repeats itself until the viewer pulls their hair out in a fit of annoyance and aggravation?

"Shiver" offers nothing new to the A-typical killer-in-the-woods slasher movie, and once again Spanish horror drops the ball. Too many times to count now that this has happened. However, if you're looking for one ugly beast to be the films villain, then look no further than the films wild girl. I have to admit, they did a great makeup effects job to uglify her. And you get to see that job close up at the end. But beyond that, and a few decent scenes between mother and son, "Shiver" leaves the audience out in the cold.

Positives:A few good scenes involving Santi and his mom, good makeup effects on the wild girl.

Negatives:Boring cliched script, terrible characters so poorly rounded it hurt, and an overall lack of entertainment value.

Overall:One out of four stars.





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