Whine at the Shrine
When an American backpacker travelling around Europe goes missing journalist Carmen (Cindy Sampson), her assistant Sara (Meghan Heffern) and her boyfriend Marcus (Aaron Ashmore), a photographer, take it upon themselves to investigate. After visiting the missing backpackers mother the trio end up heading to Europe and a small village in Poland where Carmen believes he was last seen. As the trio start poking about they soon get a feeling they are not welcome especially when they discover the village's secret ritualistic side forcing them to fight for their survival.
I reckon if I were to browse through my movie reviews of late 60s, early 70s horror movies I could find one with a story where a person goes missing, another person goes looking for them in a remote European village and ends up unearthing the place has a cultist side where people are sacrificed. So basically what I am saying is that "The Shrine" certainly isn't anything new but it does update this sort of 60s/70s horror with of course a more current influence and by that it embraces the torture porn side of say "Hostel" which of course probably springs to mind for many horror movie fans.
The thing about "The Shrine" is that whilst you can spot various influences from 60s right through to more recent horror movies for me it doesn't do anything with them to lift them. As such it ends up not only a generic horror movie but one which to be honest screams made on a budget. It isn't that "The Shrine" is tacky but from picture quality through to locations and some of the less critical special-effects it just feels cheap.
What this all boils down to is that "The Shrine" ended up doing very little for me than giving me 90 minutes of ideas which reminded me of various other horror movies. Maybe for those who are young without much horror experience it will be effective but for those who love their horror movies might find it all a little too generic.
