Shepherd (2022) by Russell Owen

Director: Russell Owen

Year: 2022

Country: United Kingdom

Alternative Titles: N/A

Genre: Psychological

Plot:

After his adulterous wife dies in an accident, a grieving husband decides to take a job shepherding sheep on a remote island nearby to process the situation only to be tormented by a seemingly malicious spirit intent on unearthing a hidden truth about the incident.

Review:

While there's not much to this one it is quite enjoyable for what it is. The fact that it manages to evoke a mysterious and generally eerie atmosphere here is about all that works as this one generates some impressive atmosphere due to the situation. The sense of isolation here with his physically being stranded on the remote island as well as mentally with the ghosts of his past rendering him incapable of anything other than taking a job on this island offers a fantastic building block to work The supernatural sequences off of. From strange behaviors by his dog forcing him to look around the house, eerie bowling in the distance that no one else can respond to or the strange discoveries around the island he keeps making, this one manages an effectively chilling scenario that may or may not be in his mind.

However, while this creates a fantastic starting point the film never does much else with it. That's due to the dreary and depressing tone that carries on throughout here as the quiet, slow-burn setup keeps the overt scares away in favor of a more unnerving series of psychological mind games involving a person not ready to accept their fate. This offers up a highly puzzling setup that might not work for most out there which gets this one off to a rather underwhelming beginning point. Less troublesome but also detrimental is the somewhat overlong running time for this kind of genre effort which does make this one somewhat of a challenge to get through. Otherwise, these are the only flaws here.

Overview: ***.5/5

A generally solid and enjoyable psychological genre effort, that the film's few issues present aren't that detrimental in the long run against the more prominent positives makes for a lot to like here. Those who prefer this slow-burn atmospheric style of genre care or are curious about it will have a lot to like while most others should need caution.