Who payed the critics

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Don't Believe the Hype

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The ending of this movie is profound. I think that it goes to the movie which it looks at the viewpoint and thought of the young child. The quality of the sound film was very good, and I was immersed and did not know how long it was going. I am very satisfied.

6-year old Aslak lives with his mother in a rural town in Norway. Through Aslak's friend we learn that something has been brutally killing the farmers' sheep. Caught in a mix of family secrets and small town struggles, Aslak finds himself drawn into the dense woods behind his house.Together with Aslak, our young protagonist, we explore the great unknown though the eyes of a child lost in the woods. Danger and curiosity go hand in hand as the movie unfolds. What is real and what isn't? There is something beautifully innocent in looking to nature for answers we cannot comprehend. It's the mood of the film and the striking visuals, the uncertainty and the looming sense of foreboding, accompanied by eerily beautiful music, that makes Valley of Shadows thoroughly intriguing. Valley of Shadows is thought provoking with a chilling, fairy-tale like aesthetic that is truly beautiful, while being, at it's core, a movie about a struggling family with their own traumas and secrets.

1. The DVD cover was the most engaging part of the movie. 2. Lots of foreboding music to set mood & action (or non-action in this case) - a crutch. 3. Opening scene of a couple of dead sheep. Most likely a wolf pack kill, but we are led to believe it is more horrifically sinister (e.g. a werewolf), and also because of lots of references to a full moon (the full Moon tie never gets old). That's about it for ol' wolfy (were or otherwise). 4. Local farmers put up a weak, rickety chicken wire fence and left some meat in that area. Made no sense 5. Anyway, most of the movie is following a young boy as he walks in the "gloomy" forest in his backyard. That's it. Well, the forest was cool.

I am shocked with the high ratings of this movie. It's just boring nothing with no meaningful end. The whole plot can be told in a couple of lines. Something kills sheep. 2 boys think it's a werewolf. Then the younger boy loses his dog. Then half of the film he wanderers in the forest looking for his dog; nothing happens. Then he meets a man living in a house in the forest; nothing special in the man and the house. The man says he is the beast who kill sheep; we never know if he means it literally. Nothing else happens between the man and the boy. Then the man puts the sleeping boy in the boat. The boy is found by rescuers. The older boy founds his dog (alive). The boy breaks the fence which was built to protect sheep from the beast. Then we see the boy lying on his bed (alive), with a pool of something like blood under the bed. The end. Ah yes, the boy also had an elder brother which was a drug addict, was expelled from home and maybe died or maybe committed some crime. We never get any explanation of this line, too.