Ever since his pregnant wife Maryam (Gayle James) has died 13 years back, Thomas' (Michael Paré) life has been going downhill, and now he's a homeless alcoholic who manages to scrape up just enough money to get wasted by mugging people. One night he's hungry enough to break into a house and empty its fridge ... but eventually he notices he can't get out of the house anymore, and it holds mementos from his own past, as well as from a past of his he has never experienced. He's so perplexed by this that he jumps out of the second floor window just to escape the place ... and lands in the sea, and eventually makes it to a rowboat, rows back to land - and to a total other life he has never had. But is it heaven - or is it hell?

The Shelter is most certainly not your everyday spooker, though rooted firmly in the uncanny it avoids by and large genre clichés let alone formulaic storytelling and instead presents us with a very labyrinthine narrative that avoids explaining everything away and intentionally pushes the doors wide open for interpretation. And thanks to a subtle directorial effort that manages to not confuse the audience even more but keep the viewer in constant suspense, and a first rate cast, the whole thing translates to screen really well!

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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