Drexler (Tyler Roy Roberts) is the head of a team of paranormal investigators - who are really in it for TV fame and fake all their paranormal experiences. And still, they agree to do a live show at the Chetco River Lodge, a house built at the site of a massacre of Native Americans, under close watch of professional doubter Dr Harding (Cameron Lee Price) and his sidekick Dr Emma Bright (Stevie Mae). Drexler and crew think they can control the situation by bringing a few fans and professional medium Phantasma (Gabrielle Malate) for diversion, but right from the beginning, everything goes wrong, as the lodge's owner Monty (Ty Boice) is just too weird for everyone's good, but not the creepy kind of weird, just weird, two of Drexler's fans (Lindsay Gustafson, Ella Anderson) hide in a closet to make out and pretty much everybody stumbles upon them, another fan (Brianna Paige Dague) tries to get it on with Drexler a bit too obviously for live cameras ... and then people start falling like the flies, killed by either arrows or tomahawks, so apparently the spirits of the massacred Native Americans finally take their revenge - and amid all of this, Drexler and Dr Harding still debate whether this is real or just another hoax ...

I have to admit, the beginning of the movie has put me off a bit, as it looked like just another paranormal investigation flick with yet another overconfident know-it-all using all sorts of ghost-meters to sell us some basic special effects for actual paranormal apparitions - and quite honestly there are quite a few too many "found footage" movies and TV shows about this around already. And that's exaxtly the genius of Beyond the Shadows, it throws us into this world before playfully debunking it (within the first five or so minutes) and then build a horror comedy on the premise, a film that sure has its suspense and sudden shocks in all the right places, but also ever so often veers off into parody without ever going full moronic, and the film is also clever enough to not stick slavishly to the found footage approach but give us a properly edited movie instead. And a very capable cast playing a bunch of very colourful characters really make this lots of fun to watch.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned)

The links below will take you just there!!!

Find Beyond the Shadows at the amazons ...   amazon.com   amazon.co.uk   amazon.de Looking for imports? Find Beyond the Shadows here ...   eThaiCD.com Your shop for all things Thai

Thanks for watching !!!