A Diamond in the Rough

Now I understand why some people will claim that this movie is a revamped formula of several hundred cliches put together. I understand that is how it seems at the beginning. I watched The Shrine with a grain of salt lodged deep in my brain. I mean being part of the vicious cycle of agreeing with popular thought and mainstream watchability of movies, I thought this would just be a mediocre straight to DVD sort of movie. But I was wrong. Dead Wrong. Sure there were a few places which seemed a bit odd and a few nitty gritty details in the script that could have been reworked. But what really hit home with this movie was how the narrative sort of led you to believe in the cliches that had been done and yet threw you into a completely different realm when you were least expecting it. For someone who had seen the likes of Frontiers, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Wicker Man and a countless other similar movies, the initial phase of the movie somehow construed that there was nothing new. But then things started working its own magic and by the end I didnt want it to end. And the best thing for me about this movie is that once you realized what was actually going on, or once the twist had been untied to say the least, you dont find oddities in what had happened before. You dont feel as if characters seemed out of place once you realized what was happening. Once you play it in your head with the twist in mind, the movie still worked and the characters still thrived. Never in such a short span of time have I felt such loathing for the antagonists which quickly turned to empathy and support the next. I recommend this movie to all those who love a good scare and a meaningful piece of mainstream cinema. For me this was akin to discovering Eden Lake or Eles or Inside (The French Movie). A true Diamond in the Rough....