| Shelter | |
|---|---|
Official poster |
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| Directed by | Måns Mårlind Björn Stein |
| Produced by | Emilio Diez Barroso Darlene Caamano Loquet Mike Macari Neal Edelstein |
| Written by | Michael Cooney |
| Narrated by | NALA Investment |
| Starring | Julianne Moore Jonathan Rhys Meyers |
| Music by | John Frizzell |
| Cinematography | Linus Sandgren |
| Editing by | Steve Mirkovich |
| Studio | Shelter Entertainment NALA Films Macari/Edelstein |
| Distributed by | FSF E1 Entertainment The Weinstein Company[1] |
| Release date(s) | March 27, 2010 (Japan) April 9, 2010 (UK) |
| Running time | 112 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $22 million[2] |
| Box office | $851,517[3] |
Shelter is a supernatural horror-thriller[4] directed by Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein,[5] written by Michael Cooney, and starring Julianne Moore and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.[6] The movie is straight-to-video in the U.S. possibly in 2011. [7]
Contents |
Widowed psychiatrist Cara (Julianne Moore) is at an airport planning to go home. A little after she calls her daughter Sam (Brooklynn Proulx) from the airport, who is being looked after by her brother Stephen (Nathan Corddry) she receives an intriguing call from her own father Dr. Harding (Jeffrey DeMunn), also a psychiatrist. He tells her about an interesting new patient he has found and persuades her to come and with him and see the patient and she agrees out of career-spurred curiosity though she is annoyed that he thinks she "should just change her schedule because he's dug out some patient from the archives." Cara meets the patient (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who is wheeled into the room and introduces himself as David Bernburg. "David" as the patient is known at this time speaks in an accent that seems to vary minutely with each sentence and its length; Cara does some standard visual 'psyche revealing' test including ones with multiples small circles in a pattern where the numbers 16 and 73 are clearly visible to normally sighted people. "David" answers in a seemingly ordinary way and talks to Cara civilly. Not long into her assessment, Cara's dad, Dr Harding- who has been watching everything through special glass makes a call to a telephone that is on the table where Cara and "David" are sitting. It rings for an uncomfortable period before "David" picks it up. Dr Harding states his name into the receiver "This is Doctor Harding. I am looking for Adam Saber." A confused "David" tells him Adam is not there and then strange noises are heard shortly thereafter. "David" has an unseen transformation into "Adam" and Cara is visibly disturbed by what she sees, which the viewer can only hear at this time. Adam Saber is 31 with a New Yorker accent, compared to David's more Southern variant. Cara greets "Adam" again as if he were a different person and proceeds to do the same tests she had previously done on "David". Adam stands up - he can walk despite being immobilized by a wheelchair moments earlier as "David". Adam's behaviour and answers are different, he is not as complacent and shows no interest in fully participating but in the circle pattern visual test he says he cannot see the visible 16 and 73. Cara accepts and takes out a different test, just a pattern of olive green circles varying slightly in size with nothing visible. Adams professes to see a 7 and Cara nods and places red film over the card, making a 7 clear. She asks him if he is colour blind and he admits to red deficiency since birth. Adam asks Cara about her faith, seeing a small gold crucifix necklace around her neck...She tells him that she sees herself as a doctor of science, but a woman of God. He also takes an interest in the death of Cara's husband upon discovering he was murdered through Dr Harding who states that as the reason he doesn't believe in God anymore, "the murder of a good man".[8]
Cara thinks she has Adam figured out, since he can actually walk she believes that Adam must be the 'host' (real person) and David is the 'alter'. Going to the hospital to check up on Adam's medical records, she discovers that when Adam is 'Adam' and when Adam is 'David', his skeletal structure alters, so that when he is 'David', his vertebrate is fused. As well, she visits a doctor in the hospital, an old friend of hers and who took care of Adam after he was found in the streets. Cara researches on David's history and finds that David is a different person than Adam's alter ego. She then visits his house to find that the real David Bernberg died years ago. Through his mother she finds out that he had accident that left him paralyzed. Three years later he turns toward science in order to fix his legs and goes to the city but he comes back soon, doubting his religion and god. After that he disappeared, only to be found weeks later tortured and dead. Once Cara hears this, she believes Adam created 'David' in order to have someone who he can take pity on, someone who had it worse than him. To test this theory, she has 'David' and the real David's mother meet up. 'David' recognized her immediately and tells her things that only the real David would know. In anger Ms. Bernberg rejects him, calling him an evil thing. Cara pushes the testing further and takes David to the spot he was killed. David starts reacting badly and Cara calls for help. She soon finds that Adam has another personality: Westly. Cara complains to her Dad for not giving her real warning about his other split personalities. [9] Cara uses this other personality to back up her original theory, as Westly died in a car accident the same time he was in jail. Wondering what Adam's home life was originally like, Cara goes into his house to find a dead body. After the police come Cara rushes to pick up Sammy, where she sees that Adam, now taken the personality of her doctor friend, is speaking to Sammy. Panicked, Cara calls her father who tells her that the doctor was found dead. The End...?
Filming took place in Pittsburgh starting in March 2008.[13]
The United Kingdom release was set with a cinema release on April 9, 2010.[14]
Mike Sheridan from Entertainment.ie gave the film two stars out of five stating Shelter is 'A thriller desperately trying to throw the audience off at every corner, just as writer Michael Cooney's previous screenplay effort Identity did to mostly stellar effect, Shelter is instead a whole lot of stupid wrapped in moody packaging.'[15] Mark Harrison from Den of Geek gave a more positive review, calling it 'horror by numbers, but it's at least sparing with whatever felt tip pen denotes ‘jump scares.[16]