THE SHED (2019)

 

(Director/screenwriter: Frank Sabatella, who based his screenplay on Jason Rice’s story.)

Review

A seventeen-year-old boy, Stan (Jay Jay Warren) discovers a feral vampire in his abusive grandfather’s shed. Stan locks and boards it up. Horrible things, cheesy action-flick taglines, and predictable twists happen because of his inaction and mistakes.

SHED is half of a good movie─specifically the first half, the set-up. What ruins the second half is the screenplay. It saddles Stan with a constant case of Plot Convenient Stupidity (PCS). It’s understandable that the anxious boy is uncertain and afraid to deal with the beast in his grandfather’s tool shack─for a little while. But even a timid, not-completely-dumb teenager would eventually realize that they must deal with a certain-to-escape bloodsucker, be it alone (by burning down the shed during the day) or by dispatching the wild exsanguinist with help from an angry, also-bullied best friend (Dommer). When Stan finally does act, it’s too late, and much of what he does is idiotic, mistakes that get people gorily torn apart.

More tender-hearted, abused and/or anxious viewers might be willing to overlook Stan’s PCS, explain away his cowardice and inaction. I get why they might do that. That said, a solid film is about balancing all elements of the story─or at least provide enough solid reasons on which viewers can balance their disbelief. Sabatella does not do that, reducing this often admirable and sometimes entertaining flick to a series of catastrophic events that feel forced, a writerly clusterfrak (given its solid set-up, the writer-director could’ve easily, with a few scenes, tweaked SHED’s script in a way where Stan isn’t an ineffectual, initial coward, still placing the characters where Sabatella wanted them to be).

Aside from Sabatella’s mishandling of Stan and the run-and-hide-too-often last act, the rest of SHED’s aspects are impressive. The FX are wow-worthy, its kill scenes well-shot, its look and instrumental score striking and effective, and the actors are good-to-great.

Notable actors include: Siobhan Fallon Hogan (THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT, 2018) as Sheriff Dorney; Timothy Bottoms as Ellis; Frank Whaley as Bane.

While this is far from the worst film I’ve seen, its second half was a frustrating viewing experience. (Again, more emotive, caught-up-in-the-abuse-metaphor filmgoers might enjoy this flawed flick, made by a clearly talented cast and crew.) I hope Sabatella gets it right next time, because it’s obvious he and his crew have something cinematically worthwhile in them.