Shadowland

This film is somewhat enjoyable in that it avoids using too many clichés and tries to be different. It's quite successful at that. The film makes use of flashbacks at appropriate moments to unfold the past life of a female vampire. This helps the viewers understand that there's a human there somewhere underneath.

The film was quite successful at making me sympathize with her present life, although it was hard to sympathize with her past life, which is what we see in the flashbacks. One might think, well, she was an unruly daughter to her father and she just got what she deserved and was doomed to carry the pain of living the rest of her life as a vampire.

When I was watching this film, I didn't really feel like I was watching a vampire film. This was different. It was like following the story of a beggar trying to get herself some food and clothes and escaping from the police except that she had uncanny powers.

This film IS entertaining, but at times I felt it was too boring to watch specially because there aren't many main characters involved in the film other than a vampire girl wandering in the streets, an uninteresting guy trying to catch her and stupid police officers who don't even know how to use guns.

If you are interested in watching how a beggar desperately tries to survive on the streets, this is a perfect movie to see, otherwise keep your distance.

This is an interesting independent vampire movie that exchanges the gratuities of most modern vamp movies with a softly nuanced character-based story about a woman, staked as a newly-made vampire several centuries ago, who is accidentally awakened (via the old removal-of-the-stake-from-her-heart gag) in modern times, where she tries to find her old love while evading both police and a clerical vampire hunter seeking her demise – and continuing to deal with the tragic reality that she has been made a vampire. It's a very sympathetic story (without descending into saccharine TWILIGHT territory) that proffers an appealing side to the vampire movie, exchanging thoughtful insight instead of spectacle and carnage. Filmed in St Louis with local talent, the filmmakers tried to make a PG vampire movie that would be suitable for families (that opening staking scene evidently earned them their R-rating), and focuses on character interaction while telling an interesting story largely from the vampire lady's perspective. In the lead role, actress Caitlin McIntosh, who is strikingly beautiful to the point of distraction, plays Laura with expressiveness and sympathy. The other cast members are adequate if indistinctive. The film's low budget is wisely used to its best advantage by director Wyatt Weed in his first feature-length movie; production quality is quite good with limited use of very good CGI to render some of the environments (such as flashbacks to yesteryear) and to make vampire movements ultra-fast; props must go to young makeup artist Rachel Rieckenberg who does an amazing job with limited means to create convincing and creatures, wounds, and the like. Patrick Savage and Holeg Spies (having together scored THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE) and American MANIAC prior to this) provide a serviceable score that supports the duality of the film's heroine as both innocent victim and unwilling monster.

Sometimes an actor is cast and maybe their voice is not entirely ... maybe it doesn't fit or maybe it is better to leave them without anything to say. Not sure if it is a gimmick here or if the lead actress was not considered good enough an actress to have a talking part .. whatever the case, she is looking good .. not just for a Vampire.

Having said that, the movie and its pace are really something you have to get used to. B-movie if you are being nice and if you are into that. The ending is weird too ... not sure if I would consider it in a good sense.

Although this movie kept me entertained to a level in which i wanted to see how far they would take it, it's not something i would consider watching again.

The acting was weak at best but not so much that you couldn't watch it or turn away in disgust since it did have its moments, this will never win any awards but it is entertaining.

The portrayal of vampires was indeed its weakest part considering what fiction dictates to be a correct form for vampires, you shall see what i mean if you decide to watch it, and although my rating is low, the story is sound and is defiantly worth a one time watch.

I give this a solid 4 out of 10, without any curve adjustment for being independent, so that is not a bad score.

I agree with one commenter that it is almost like watching a lost soul who is an addict, wandering around, looking for purpose.

Also, I think if women thought they could get biceps like Caitlin, they would volunteer for vampirism!! What is going out in the day compared to having guns like that to show off? I also think Caitlin pulled off the contrast between her feisty, pre-vampiric self, and her broken, insecure post vampire self. She is a good actress in that regard.

I fault the writing a bit. Some of the tension between the Hero and the black pastor was too contrived, they could have handled that differently.

Still, an enjoyable watch, glad I rented it. I hope she does more work in the future.

Caitlin! Flex for us! :)