The Shrine

Plot synopsis:
The film starts with a man tied to a table. Another man then kills him with a sledgehammer to the face.
A journalist, Carmen, is having problems with her relationship with her boyfriend, Marcus who is a photographer. Carmen never seems to stop thinking about work and tends to ignore him.
Carmen asks Dale, her boss, to allow her to investigate the disappearances of several tourists in the fictional Polish village of Alvania, including the man killed at the beginning of the film, who was named Eric. She also mentions that the luggage of all the missing tourists ends up being found all around rural parts of central Europe. Dale isn't interested in another missing persons case, saying that people go missing all the time, and he does not give her permission to go. Instead, he would rather have her investigate why a farmer's bees go missing.
Carmen and her intern Sara visit Eric's mother, Laura. Laura tells them that she has tried to get the help of both the Polish and the American Police. However, they are unwilling or too busy to help her. Carmen asks Laura if Eric's luggage has been returned to her. Laura says that it has and Carmen borrows Eric's journal.
Later in her home while reading Eric's journal, she has a dream of Eric with bloody eyes who tells her "Leave me alone". Carmen, wanting to mend her relationship with Marcus as well as her job, urges him to come with her and Sara to Alvania. Upon reaching Alvania, they find the village people to be secretive, unfriendly and unwelcoming, just as described in the last entry in Eric's journal. Although English is taught in the villages' school, not all the villagers know how (or are willing) to speak it.
They see a man named Henryk butchering a pig, then find a girl named Lidia picking flowers and approach her. They show her a picture of Eric and ask if she has seen him. The girl reacts at the sight of Eric in the picture but is hesitant to answer. Before she even can, Henryk calls to her and sends her off. Carmen, Sara and Marcus explore the village. They notice that the villagers treat their religious leaders like royalty. They then spot a strange dense area of fog which seems to be concentrated only in one portion of the forest, also mentioned in Eric's notes. When they attempt to investigate the fog they are threatened by Henryk and the villagers and told to leave.
Leaving the village initially, Carmen tells Marcus that they should go back and investigate the fog. Marcus initially disagrees and insists that they leave. Carmen manages to convince Marcus to return by admitting that her editor knows nothing about the trip and that her career will be over if she returns with no story. They leave their car and walk into the forest, where they eventually find the area with the fog. Carmen, Sara and Marcus find it strange that the fog seems to never move and is quite dense, therefore preventing Marcus from taking pictures of anything inside it.
Sara enters the fog and disappears into it. Carmen and Marcus wait for Sara to return but after a while, they lose their patience. Marcus insists that they leave but they can't leave Sara behind. Carmen enters the fog to find her. Moments after Carmen enters the fog, Sara somehow gets out and is found by Marcus. Sara appears scared and unfocused. Carmen seems to have gotten lost in the fog and comes across a statue of a demon holding a heart. Carmen takes a picture of it, and moves to the side of the statue in order to take another picture. Looking up from the camera she sees that the statue has turned its head to face Carmen. The statue's eyes bleed and the 'heart' in its hand starts to beat. This frightens Carmen. As she backs away from the statue, she finds herself out of the fog and is found by Marcus and Sara. Sara and Carmen talk about seeing the statue, both a bit disoriented, also having heard strange whispering voices.
As they make their way back to their car, they come across Lidia, who claims to know the whereabouts of Eric and takes them to a hidden sacrificial shrine, where they discover the bodies of people (including Eric) that the village people have executed. Each body has a metal mask deeply embedded in its face, making it look as though the villagers are cultists and are practicing some kind of ritual black magic on the tourists who come to Alvania. Marcus, Sara and Carmen notice that Lidia is gone and find the door of the shrine barred.
Luckily, Marcus is able to open it, but they are suddenly surrounded by the villagers and flee, hiding in a nearby barn. They are found and struggle to escape, but one of the villagers knocks Carmen out. Henryk shoots Sara's leg with a crossbow. The villagers knock her out with chloroform but not before she sees the face of one of the villagers turn into a demon. Marcus runs into the forest and is chased by Henryk, who catches up with him. Marcus fights Henryk but the latter gains the upper hand and knocks him out with chloroform.
As they wake up, they see Henryk talking to Lidia. Lidia walks off and the villagers bring them back to the entrance of the sacrificial shrine where the head of the village's church, Arkadiusz, decides to sacrifice both Sara and Carmen. The two are taken inside the shrine while Marcus is led away by two villagers and is forced at gunpoint to dig a grave. After one of them leaves, Marcus uses the shovel to disarm the remaining villager with the gun and knock him unconscious. He takes the gun and runs off to rescue Sara and Carmen.
At the shrine, cultists strip Carmen and Sara and dress them in ceremonial gowns. The cultists place Sara on the same ceremonial table where Eric was killed while Carmen is placed in a prison cell. The cultists secure Sara's arms, legs and head. They then deeply lacerate her arms and sever her Achilles' tendons. While this is being done to her, she sees the faces of the cultists and Arkadiusz turn into demons. The same mask earlier found on the corpses is placed over Sara's head. It has two spikes inside of it which are meant to pierce Sara's eyes. Arkadiusz takes a sledgehammer and uses it to embed the mask into Sara's face, killing her.
One of the cultists looks at Carmen and she sees that the cultist's face has become that of a demon. They bring her out to be sacrificed but Marcus rescues her. He locks the cultists in the shrine and he and Carmen make their escape.
They enter a villager's house to steal the keys to a truck. Marcus sees a woman, Emilia, and her son, Dariusz, in the kitchen. The woman calls for her husband, Aleks, but is unable to do anything since Marcus still has the gun. Marcus asks them for the keys to the truck but they can't understand English. When they see Carmen, Emilia expresses fear and panic. Marcus takes the family to their living room and ties up the couple.
While Marcus tries to get them to give him the keys, Carmen starts to experience voices. She sees the objects in the room shake. She sees Dariusz turn into a demon. She sees Emilia and Aleks turn demonic, untie themselves and crawl on the floor. Marcus turns to Carmen and he too has become a demon. But in truth all of them are still human, Emilia and Aleks are still tied up and none of them are even looking at her.
Carmen hides in another room where she continues to see and hear things. Dariusz, who understands and speaks English, leads Marcus back to the kitchen and gives him the truck keys. Not wanting to risk Dariusz going out and calling for help, Marcus also ties him up. The boy begs for Marcus to let them go and warns him that Carmen is evil since she has seen the statue. Carmen is then possessed by a demon while she is alone in the room and lets out a very loud shriek. The cultists, who have gotten free and are looking for her, hear the shriek and are alerted to Carmen's location.
Marcus hears Carmen calling out to him. As he enters the room she went inside, through a door from the kitchen, another door leading back to the living room closes. Marcus hears Aleks and Emilia scream in fear and pain, followed by footsteps going to the kitchen. He then hears Dariusz screaming. As he looks out from the door, he sees the boy being dragged away. The door then closes and Dariusz's screaming stops. The door leading to the living room slowly opens. He goes to the living room and finds the entire family brutally killed. The possessed Carmen then jumps on him and pins him on the floor. Just as she is about to kill him, she is confronted by the cultists. She kills several of them, but Arkadiusz fights back with prayers and holy water. He calls for the mask but the cultist holding the mask is stunned with fear, giving the possessed Carmen the opportunity to impale Arkadiusz. She turns her attention back to Marcus.
Before Arkadiusz dies, he passes on his duties to Henryk. Henryk chants prayers while splashing Carmen with holy water, and stabs her. The prayers weaken her, allowing Henryk to slowly set her on the floor. Two more cultists help. They impale Carmen's hands and pin her to the floor. Henryk calls for the mask and this time, the cultist holding the mask complies. They position the mask over Carmen's face while Henryk readies the sledgehammer. However Carmen still struggles and the mask can't be properly placed over her eyes.
Marcus now realizes what is going on and understands why it was necessary to kill Sara and Carmen. They had seen the statue, which is why the villagers had to kill them, but he himself hasn't. The cultists weren't sacrificing anyone; they were trying to prevent demonic possession from taking place. Knowing this, Marcus assists Henryk and the others by holding Carmen's head still. With the mask now in place, Henryk readies the sledgehammer to embed the mask. Carmen returns to normal and asks Marcus for help but he knows it is just a trick. Henryk sends the sledgehammer down and embeds the mask on Carmen, killing her.
Marcus then looks at Henryk and the remaining men, wondering what will happen to him since he knows too much. One of the villagers asks Henryk what they will do with Marcus. In the end, Marcus is set free by the villagers. Henryk offers to have one of the village's men take him to where he needs to go. Marcus looks over to the forest where the fog is seen. Not knowing what is really inside the fog, he asks Henryk about it. He is told that the fog and the statue are a curse left long ago on the village that cannot be undone. The devilish statue is shown once more and the screen goes black.

Tags: paranormal, violence, murder

Review:
But there are some pretty decent aspects to "The Shrine" that make it worth the 90-odd minutes out of your life time to watch it.First of all, it's not as entirely stupid as 99.9999% of horror movies currently in release.
It is an original, well done production that strikes me as unlike most of the horror of 2010.The strong points would be better acting than many films of the genre, characters that are smarter than most horror movie characters (they still do some stupid things, but they don't know they are in a horror movie), and some nice creepy effects.
A hard-nosed journalist, Carmen (Cindy Sampson, Supernatural), her boyfriend, Marcus (Aaron Ashmore, Smallville), and an intern, Sara (Meghan Heffern, Almost Heroes), travel to Alvania to investigate the disappearance of Eric Taylor, the last person of many reported to have vanished after visiting the small Polish village.
It turns out that this low-budget horror movie written and directed by Jon Knautz is a well-crafted thriller with better acting than most of its genre, with the exception of Ashmore who appears really damn angry about everything throughout the entire film.
Speaking of gore, there are a couple of scenes in particular that may give you the dry heaves if you're not a horror veteran but if you can handle a film like the The Ruins, you can survive The Shrine.
I'd endorse this flick to mainstream audiences who want to watch a horror movie now and then to experience some cheap scares without sex/nudity/torture..
This movie gave a good eerie feeling, which most horror movies fails at, it has a good amount of gore to keep those fans happy, but also gives us some twist and turns to keep ppl interested in watching.
The shooting location should have actually been Poland because the dialects were unconvincing (and Im not even polish).I loved the fact that I was really drawn into the story and wanted to know what was going to happen.
I am a huge fan of B horror movies and I must say in recent years we see very few well made low budget horror flicks where lack of big bucks is compensated by a good story, hard work and movie-making ingenuity.
That said: if special effects are called for – the makers of the movie did not cut corners and those few FX scenes look 100% real and add to the overall atmosphere of the movie.One more bonus point: the people speaking Polish in the movie actually DO speak Polish and lines they speak DO make sense.
The whole point of people speaking Polish without subtitles was to add to the atmosphere of insecurity and confusion as felt by the main characters.The fact that the movie-makers made such an effort to write a ton of dialog in Polish and have the actors (almost none of which is a native Polish speaker) speak it in a manner that was 90% understandable and in some cases sounded almost native – well that was awesome.The bad: if you speak Polish you will know what is going on way sooner than you should.The portrayal of a "Polish village" for the story was about as accurate as a portrayal of a Mississippi town in big-budget "Straw Dogs" (if you are not familiar with the South you MIGHT believe it will take an ambulance an hour to get to a town big enough to have a high school in 2011).
Lost among a sea of teenage grouping of bad actors pretending to be scared and then..suddenly a gem like this will come to light and you can feel hope again.I have hope again in movies thanks to this masterpiece.
The action of Canadian horror flick "The Shrine" takes place in a small Polish village of Kozki,where several young Americans vanished without a trace.The story of various disappearances is the main interest of Carmen,a young fame and money-hungry journalist.She and her assistant Sara and her photographer boyfriend Marcus travel to Poland to solve the mystery.The locals in Kozki are not friendly and there is an esoteric cult which practices blood sacrifices and has leaders shouting litanies in laughably bad Polish.The portrayal of Polish villagers in "The Shrine" is obnoxious and downright silly,but being Polish I had a total blast watching this crappy horror extravaganza.The story owes a lot to Robin Hardy's "The Wicker Man" and mushroom trip like visions of demonic faces are quite creepy.The soundtrack is minimalistic and there is a bit of great gore.7 angry Poles out of 10..
Horrible movie.Just another flick with...An unbelievable plot.Poor writing.Poor acting.Incomprehensible directing.Horrible special effects (bring out the two dollar rubber masks).And a lengthy exposition that leads no where.You will regret putting this DVD in your player.The first third is boring and dumb.The second third suggests you are going to find out something behind the craziness...but you don't.And then there is the last third which I swear is as if you are watching a different movie -- the Exorcist!
It's world premiere at the 2010 Fantasia festival gave us a nice little horror shocker evening of entertainment and I sincerely hope this gets picked up by a distributor for a wide release soon.The disappearances of several tourists over years prompts a trio of young Americans on a fact finding mission to rural Poland, searching for a missing backpacker who's the latest foreign statistic linked to a small village in that country.
What Carmen (Cindy Sampson), Marcus (Aaron Ashmore) and Sara (Meghan Heffern) discover will change not just their lives, but the whole foundation of life for many others who'd prefer to keep certain matters a secret.This film directed by Jon Knautz is full of surprises, all of which are better left to your discovery process when watching.
I speak mandarin better than most of those 'polish people' from the movie speak polish.Now, before I get to the plot, let me just say that I totally understand that The Exorcist was a classic and an amazing movie, and that it felt so real watching it that you automatically fall in love with stories about demonic possession.
First of all, for some reason the writers decided to add a bit more depth to the plot by sticking some completely pointless ideas in random places in the storyline, like haunting the poor journalist or adding an innocent little girl that was supposed to lead the three main characters into an ambush.
The camera work is just typical for a horror movie, with a lot of close-up shots and the habit of making you stare at a character's feet or back as they walk down a path in the forest.
The acting wasn't too great and there were several points where there was a clear bit where the movie was using scenes to move the story forward.
I have been looking at other peoples lists of good horror movies trying to find something that will terrify me and shock me.
Traditionally gratuitous scenes of sex or gore would be added to films of this quality and, even if they usually make you feel worse about the movie, it is even worse without them, as demonstrated by The Shrine.Bottom line: if there weren't so many movies with the same basic plot, the same mindless acting and the same cheap East European actors, this would have been average.
No famous actors, no famous director, no famous places and yet this movie is better than many others.I was kinda skeptical before watching, but I liked trailer so I gave it a try, and I am glad I did because I can say this movie is a big surprise...
Story is fresh, and I think I can say original, it will take us to Poland (language fits here and makes good atmosphere, the only problem is for "english only" people, because they will need subs).
Masks are pretty good, acting as well (especially Marcus and Henryk), not too much blood and gore but instead thrill and scary scenes.The end of the movie (in particular the last scene) is brilliant, I was really scared.
And i am not one to be easily scared by horror films since The Exorcist.But as others have also mentioned, the dialogue in the other language (which i think is supposed to be Polish) spoken in this movie has no subtitles for viewers and though this is intentional, probably to create more suspense in viewers, i think it could have been done differently.
I had decided to just watch this after being intrigued by the summary and cover and since I'm a huge horror movie fan I always give everything a chance regardless of my expectations or reviews, sometimes you find gems that way.
I mean it is a B horror film so do not set high expectations and it was quite frustrating at times to watch in which u wonder why someone would put themselves in that situation but I guess it was part of the plot ..id say give it a shot but like I said don't expect much..
Even though I have watched hundreds of horror movies, I have never seen such a twist end.
The first time I put this movie on, I watched about 15 minutes into the film and turned it off.
I didn't want to have this movie not watched all the way through so I gave it one more try and this time I skipped about 30 minutes into the film.
I was honestly surprised to have like the movie so much especially because I was so turned off by the beginning of the film.
Also, you are VERY much left in the dark as to exactly what is going on right up until the end; so, if you are easily intrigued by this kind of Mystery, then you would be more likely to get caught up in it.Please note, the movie takes place in a foreign land.
Also, VERY importantly, it is religiously themed; some people either really love that type of film or they really don't, so keep that in mind.It is kind of difficult to explain this in a way to help others to see whether they would enjoy this movie or not.
But, I would say that IF you are the kind of person who VERY EASILY AND QUICKLY gets caught up in a mystery where you DON'T really quite know what is going on, AND if you do like kind of Old-School, atmospheric, religiously themed Horror stories, THEN you have a good chance of enjoying it.I hope this helps....
While THE SHRINE which is a lesser known little gem is one of the more very effective horror movies in recent years along with the two aforementioned.The acting is exceptionally better than average, the characters do share a few stereotypical traits but sometimes they manage to actually react with a degree of common sense.The plot itself is an interesting one, most of which is told in subtext shown by the fact that there are no subtitles when the polish characters all speak polish as if treating the none polish speaking viewer as an outsider like the main characters who are from the states.Overall, THE SHRINE along with THE PACT and THE CONJURING are three of the better horror films I've seen recently and THE SHRINE being the lesser known title among them certainly holds it's ground very well..
If you've seen more than two horror films since the nineteen seventies, you've probably seen a car load of good looking Americans going somewhere they shouldn't and running into something they wished they hadn't.Sometimes it's rednecks, other times monsters and occasionally plants and flesh-eating diseases.
well, let's just say they should probably have stayed in a Starbucks restaurant in New York.I've seen dozens of films like this and what makes them either good or bad is, in my opinion, whether the characters are likable and whether or not they behave in a way we can relate to.
The characters are decent enough to relate to (okay, so no major character development, but it has gore, so that's a good substitute, right?) and, if you can ignore them going to an out-of-the-way Polish village in the first place, they don't spend the rest of the movie running headlong into obviously dangerous situations.Obviously, there's better out there and this one never borrows elements from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hostel and even the Exorcist, but still it should keep you entertained for an hour and a half.Note: if you ever go to Poland...
While i was impressed with what these film makers could do with such a low budget, it all goes out the window when i figured out that they follow the typical and overused annoyances that often ruin a good horror movie.
acting was very good, story was pretty believable and original, all around great job done on this film, i don't think there was anything that i didn't like about the movie, atmosphere a little later into the movie is completely creepy, also you will be very shocked by the ending..completely unexpected by how it starts out.
this movie is honestly on my top list of horror movies that actually are effective in scaring you, also not the same kinda overdone story like all other movies, everything about this is original, and great camera work too, the movie looks amazing, so if you haven't gotten a chance to check this out, i highly recommend doing it as soon as you can!.
The Shrine has a very intriguing story, with some great twists, but the acting in this movie was less than decent.
5/10The story of The Shrine is not completely new, but it was different from most recent horror movies.
"The Shrine" was actually a nice surprise of a horror movie.
Especially because the movie build up some good moments, and had a great twist to it.The story in "The Shrine" is about three Americans who travel to Poland, looking for a missing American.
That said, lots of gore folks, but that third act in the story, a satisfying chill for horror buffs.If you like movies that take you to a dark place and then turn the whole world upside down, you have found it.
To add to this I was freaking out to the point of looking up subtitle information because the Polish language has no subs...which I must thank a reviewer here that allowed me to know they don't exist, and they add nothing to the plot if they did.At that end, my worries stopped and the movie was over.
Like I said the one part that eerily sticks in my mind goes so well with the music they use that I think it should be in the top 100 creepy movie scenes of all time.
I especially liked the statue.The last ten minutes or so of the film is probably the best, where everything comes to a climax and you sort of learn what is going on, though not entirely since almost all of the dialogue for the villagers is in polish with no subtitles.
(At least not in the version I watched.) I did enjoy the plot and given more time, better budget, more characters and a better lead as well as more depth to the script and I think you have the potential for a very good horror movie.
In addition to all that there's a shed in the middle of the forest that's actually an entrance to an underground mausoleum/shrine, a bunch of hackneyed religious symbolism, a whole lot of cheesy rituals, and the obligatory chase scenes in which the three Americans run around trying to escape the angry, seemingly backwards villagers.Basically, about half-way through this movie you're hoping everyone dies because you just want the whole thing to end.
What is good about this film: an interesting plot - builds up suspension through the story rather than image, and......that is it.
Like the Wicker man, the hero/s go in search of a missing person, whose last entry into a journal was when he was in Poland.The journal gives them advice in a roundabout way, advising them to stay away, so they.....go.Getting info from a Young girl, who appears to be only who can speak English is never a good idea, so they follow her.So thats the kind of movie you are dealing with, people going ginto the woods when they shouldn't, and being chased by pagans.The acting isn't that bad, but the blue screen is one of the worst i have endured.It's predictable on the verge of offensive, and the extra mark is for one disturbing scene that involves a statue.Don't believe the positive reviews, chances are you've seen this movie a hundred times before, and a hundred times better..
I'm finding that these smaller projects are much better horror films than the drivel coming out of Big Hollywood these days.Anyway, the acting is good, the special effects pretty good, the plot line is exceptional, and the setting is perfect.
Don't let the bad reviews turn you away...you'll enjoy this movie!Spoilers:Even after the two girls go into the fog, I was still not expecting where the plot went.
The story had some mystery, good plot, and of course, the scare and chill you would want see from a horror movie.
I liked a lot that the Polish characters spoke untranslated Polish, and I found the caricature of Poland funny.The basic problem with the movie was that the authors seemingly had concentrated on the last final plot twist - the last scene was very good indeed!
THE SHRINE is a Canadian horror film set in Poland.
The green screen was more than apparent in many places but like I said if you want a good jumper movie just for the scares it's mildly decent, and the gore is pretty amazing in my mind!
Watch a movie like The Village, Gummo, or Winter's Bone and see how American films have depicts American backwater burgs, it might make you feel better.Anyway, this was an above average horror movie, definitely good date night material.