Fresh: Review of Shelter

Apr 12 2010 by Mike OConnell, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

SHELTER (15, 112 mins) 5/10

SHELTER  Horror. Julianne Moore, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Jeffrey DeMunn, Frances Conroy, Brooklynn Proulx, Nathan Corddry. Directors: Mans Marlind, Bjorn Stein.

Released: April 9 (UK & Ireland)

Simply as surely as the sun will rise in the east, Oscar-nominated actress Julianne Moore will continue to offset her brilliant work in independent films with thankless roles in mainstream Hollywood fare.

For every Short Cuts, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Far From Heaven or A Single Man, there is a romantic comedy like Nine Months with Hugh Grant, the abortive Silence Of The Lambs sequel Hannibal or sci-fi comedy Evolution with David Duchovny.

Perhaps her rent is extortionate and there’s no other way for Moore to pay the bills than to sign her name to substandard projects.

The curse strikes again with Shelter, a ho-hum psychological thriller from London-born screenwriter Michael Cooney (Identity) that is just as loopy as some of the thinly sketched characters.

Directed by the Swedish double-act of Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein, this hoary genre piece has nothing but cliches up its sleeve.

The soundtrack begins with rumbling, discordant strings to signal impending doom as the film’s sceptical heroine unravels the kind of supernatural hocus pocus which kept Mulder and Scully at loggerheads for nine series of The X Files.

Dr Cara Jessup (Moore) is an expert in the field of multiple personality disorders and has been called as a witness at the trials of murderers and psychopaths who tried to mimic the symptoms to avoid a death sentence.