The Shade

Despite the fact of never having heard about director Tyler Chipman's 2023 horror movie "The Shade", as I stumbled upon it here in 2025, of course I needed no persuasion to watch the movie, given my love of all things horror.

The narrative in the movie is a bit slow paced, and that sort of makes it a bit of a drag and a test of will to sit through the movie. There was very little of anything overly interesting happening as the narrative dragged on and one. So writers Tyler Chipman and David Purdy didn't really impress me with the script and storyline that the conjured up for this movie.

The only familiar faces on the cast list for me were actors Michael Boatman and Brendan Sexton III. Despite the fact that the script was a sluggish affair, I will still say that the acting performances in "The Shade" were fair.

This was not a movie that made use of an abundance of special effects, I can't really claim that the effects were doing much to lift up the movie in general.

While I did manage to sit through the entire movie in its 127 minute runtime, I did almost drift off to sleep once or twice along the way. With a runtime could have benefitted from a round-handed trimming down in post editing.

I would not recommend you to throw away 127 minutes of your life on this movie, it just simply doesn't have the entertainment value to sustain such a long runtime. Nor is it a movie that I will ever suffer through a second time.

My rating of director Tyler Chipman's 2023 movie "The Shade" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

THE GOOD REVIEWS ARE LIES

I just wasted my time watching this crap that starts out good, but they obviously had no idea how to give the story any background or an ending that wasn't a complete joke.

Why are the characters being haunted?

Nope, no answer, not even a clue and the ending is just stupid.

This is Not a horror movie. This is a bait and switch. You start the movie thinking, "hey, this looks like it could be a creepy film about satanic cults," but it ends up just a wanna-be documentary on hereditary schizophrenia that makes a mockery of the actual illness and those that suffer it.

Pretty disgusted I got taken in by the good reviews.

Film all in all is not bad - the metaphors make it across the board, the characters and acting is well for the most part, the cinematography and thensome is phneomal, however the issue I personally had was the fact that the film dragged it's feet through thick mud. If you're expecting this to he a horror flick to the core, scary - immediately disregard that, this is an all in all very reality stricken tale of many challenging emotions like depression, grief and the repercussions of what our lashing actions can do. It really gets the messages across the board well, but as said, thick mud. I can see many people losing their patience with this one, finding it boring with its very prominent slow burn approach. This is a film to watch, if you're seeking to immerse yourself in this characters trauma and grief journey, as well as get a glimpse of some really well captured raw emotions.

I fully see where they were going, I personally enjoy the message and thensome, however with its extremely slow wrapping up and ending that ( for me ) felt like the capsize of this film, this was quite an endurance to sit through and watch. Mentally prepare and know what this film has to offer before jumping in.

4.5 is slightly underrated. The acting was completely natural. This is the first time I've ever paid attention to how well Chris Galust can act and is it just me or does he look a little like Jack Dawson aka Leonardo DiCaprio? I couldn't help but watching him act and envisioning young Leo with the same mannerisms and features. Anyway with that said this movie can really test your movie watching endurance. While it does have a few good climaxes they are few and far between one another. So after something happens you're kind of just watching a bunch more character building until you get a slight pop of a demon and then your back in the therapist chair or laying with the Misses. The beginning starts of promising but it kind of gets debunked when you realize that isn't what really happens. Good movie good acting super super super slow burn. 2 hours was completely unnecessary. 4.5 is low it could gotten 5.5 or even a 6 easy but I'll go with 5.

Maybe it's just me but I immediately can hear his Russian accent. I had to look up the actor and sure enough. It's just distracting to this movie since Ryan is supposed to be an American guy. Maybe non Russians don't notice it but it annoyed me way too much. Otherwise the movie is kind of slow so far full disclosure I am only 45 min in and feel like I might not make it. The accent!!! Arghhh.