I certainly don't intend to say that "Shadow" is a bad film, and I don't even want to discourage anyone from watching it; the only thing that is simply undeniable is that it contributes almost nothing to the horror genre. The story, written by director Frederico Zampaglione , shamelessly cashes in on the biggest and most profitable horror trends of the new millennium, namely vicious torture porn situations (eerie devices in dark and sinister cellars) and silent & nameless creeps that mercilessly ambush ignorant tourists to feast their perverted torture fetishes upon. During "Shadow", I spotted elements and ideas that were previously used in films such as "Saw", "Hostel", "Frontière(s)", "Blood Trails", "Timber Falls" and possibly a few other titles I already forgot about. Relieved that he's finally back from serving in the Iraq war, avid bike rider David goes on an adventurous trip that was recommended to him by a friend. The area, known as "The Shadow", is breath-taking and David even meets the girl of his dream. She's a French beauty called Angelique and she's also obsessed with bike riding; what are the odds on that? Their freshly found happiness rudely gets interrupted when they run into a couple of redneck hunters and are forced to abandon their bikes to hide into the thick woods. Little does David know that this only the beginning of the nightmare, as the Shadow also homes a cruel and psychopathic creep who likes to torture people. The thing that surprised (or is it annoyed?) me the most is the severe lack of sick and nasty violence depicted on screen. All the shocking stuff, as well as most of the killings, occurs off-screen, which is quite unusual for a torture porn flick. The movie does manage to be reasonably suspenseful, especially because David and Angelique are nice and amiable persons, whereas the hunters are loathsome bastards, so during the cat-and- mouse games you automatically cheer for the biker couple. Experienced horror fans can also entertain themselves by spotting all the clichés, for example the soldier flashbacks or the "decorations" inside the maniac's lair. The whole ending is sort of like a mixed bag. I certainly admire Zampaglione's courage and ambition to try something completely different, but the result is principally unsatisfying and leaves quite a lot of questions unanswered. At least you cannot claim that the climax is obvious or even remotely predictable, so that's already an accomplishment on itself. Still, considering we're already in familiar terrain, I personally would have preferred more gore and bloodshed rather than a surreal twist- ending.
