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Death in the Shadows (1985)


Quite often, foreign horror films can bring something new to a horror fan's life... and sometimes not...

Valerie lived a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Amsterdam.  After her mother is killed, Valerie begins to uncover secrets about her mother's past... secrets that someone doesn't want revealed...

"Death in the Shadows" is a Dutch film originally titled "De Prooi," and was the "What Movie Wednesday" winner this week.

The story is actually pretty solid in its premise.  It offers ample opportunity for suspense and scares.  While there are some decent moments of suspense, the scares themselves are a little off.  I did like the fact that there were some attempts at a red herring here and there.  It's nice when a suspense/thriller does what it can to keep the viewer guessing.  Too bad, they didn't balance that out by giving actual clues to the identity of the real killer

Most of the characters felt like fillers, with one of them being the red herring.  Other than Valerie, and the police detective, I really didn't care much about the other characters. I didn't even feel much when the real killer is revealed.  I was indifferent to pretty much everyone in the film.

The acting wasn't bad... but rather standard and unexceptional.

The same can be said about the camera work.  There wasn't anything all that impressive, creative, or interesting in the set-up of the shots, etc.  Standard camera angles, and movements.  Despite this, there were a couple of decent moments of suspense created by editing, but they were only momentary glimmers of potential.

There were a fair number of shadows for death to come from... but not much death coming from them.  I was rather disappointed by that.  There are boobs however.  Not great boobs... but boobs nonetheless.

I will say though, that I found the music during the end credits to be catchy- I found myself whistling along to it.

Even though the premise of "Death in the Shadows" was good, this movie feel short of the mark, and lands in "The Ugly"

Special Shout Out:

I want to thank everyone that took part in "What Movie Wednesday"- especially the following who voted for "Death in the Shadows":

Redfeather Freeman
Jenny Deol
Tony Goodner
Matthew Little (from "The Wayward Tarheel")

The next "What Movie Wednesday" will be October 24th!
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