Must See Movie...

As Good As It Gets

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The Shelter is movie that is really a movie of halves. The first half delves into the depravity of a man who has lost all hope on life..both in the world and mostly in himself. While the second half has the man confronting the demons of his past which forces him to finally atone for his sins.Thomas (Michael Paré) is a man who is basically eaten alive from the inside out due to circumstances in his past that he just can't seem to escape from. The first half of the movie builds up the story of Thomas, though somewhat vaguely, being down on his luck and a hard boiled hard ass. While appreciate the attempt of building up the backstory of Thomas, I felt the movie tried to focus a little too heavy on him being a hard ass and womanizer in certain parts rather than build his backstory in a more organic way.The second half of the movie is where I feel the movie really shines. Thomas finds his way into an empty house and this is where I feel Director John Fallon's horror background really shines. Fallon crafts an interesting, paranormal and isolated setting for the character Thomas which has him confront his past and ultimately atone for his misdeeds. There are a lot of religious under and overtones but also the story is open ended enough to let someone interpret the meanings of these religious metaphors according to how they hold their own beliefs.While I do like a bit of the open natures of the story in the second half I did feel the story could have been LITTLE tighter instead of being as vague as it was in some parts. But then again I determined my own meaning from everything which I am sure could be different for another viewer.Production wise the movie is ok. Though I felt parts of it were too BRIGHT for the mood the movie was going for. I felt a lot of the bleak and deserted street scenes were very good locations but the look on film was too colorful and bright which kind of killed the mood I thought of the scenery.Overall, I felt The Shelter was a decent watch though I think the second half of the movie is the superior part of the film whereas the first half I think tried to touch more on making Thomas look macho cool instead of a more tragic character. At least at first.I would give this a 6.5 if I was able...the .5 coming from seeing director John Fallon get his ass kicked by Thomas in a scene! Always a good day to see that!!

The precedent titling here may seem incongruous to what is at first billed as a horror/thriller, but there are nuances not immediately evident in both the film's direction and in Pare's performance. I can understand the back and forth in reactions conveyed in the reviews en masse as I think a very particular mindset and perhaps even a set of life experiences to correlate bring out a very different takeaway with this film. For me, I found that I began watching it as a film but reflected on it thereafter as an exploration that left me in a state of reevaluation of my life, my attitude. Thomas is not an inherently likable guy, but you can tell (spoilers, maybe?) he knows that and, given the chance, would take measures to amend that. Ultimately though, such opportunities will never truly come, as you'll see herein, and that may be the most horrifying lesson to learn.

I will admit I had to watch "The Shelter" twice because the first time, I wasn't that interested--at first. As the movie progressed, I began thinking that it sure was nice to watch a horror film that wasn't so clichéd, so trite, so hackneyed, and so predictable. As it came to its ending, I knew I needed to watch again and this time pay attention.The movie opens and we are introduced to Thomas, superbly played by Michael Pare. He is a womanizing, booze-guzzling, canker sore on the backside of humanity. I've known many like him in my life, but I digress. Thomas is also homeless. It seems he has lost his wife and child (for reasons that will be later revealed). He happens upon this very sterile empty building--complete with all the bells and whistles anyone could ask for--and decides to hole up there. Big mistake. You see, try as he might, Thomas cannot escape from this "shelter." I won't reveal any more of the plot because I don't want to ruin this for anyone.The cinematography, art direction, and (regular) direction here are top-notch. The movie has a definite creepy look to it and this is definitely more character driven. Nobody is hiding with an ax, machete, big knife, pitchfork, drill, or chainsaw. This is one total mind- **ck. Rated "R" for adult situations, violence, and language, check out "The Shelter."

Michael Parre should set up Go Fund Me if he is starving. I think I'd rather donate to feed him then see him in "films" like this.John Fallon I've never heard of prior to this nonsense, but he should find something else to do with his life. Maybe be a preacher.At time of me writing this there is only one other review, and that person is rating it an 8/10. I guess if it was fake review it would probably have given it a 10/10, so maybe someone genuinely liked this.We have 75 minutes of Michael Parre playing a lunatic homeless person who is behaving like he just overdosed on bath salts. For some crazy reason (maybe I missed how he got it) at one point this homeless guy has a loaded gun which he proceeds to fire in house he broke into. The entire movie plays like LSD trip. A bad trip. Its filled with unexplained nonsense, characters who appear, disappear, are never explained, and in all honesty my attention drifted. I had it playing on one of my three monitors while working on other two, and I quite possibly missed few bits of explanation at some point, maybe, but I doubt it.The sole reason I endured this to the end is just to see if there is any legitimate reason not to give it a 1/10, I like Parre and I would prefer to rate things hes in bit higher, but ... this film is just bad. Not so bad its good, just plain bad, boring, nonsense about God.We are in 2016 people. Its obvious to anyone sane there is no "God" and there never was. Get a life!