Movie Review: The Shed

credit: The Shed

Jumping right into a horror movie can go one way or another since the whole idea that such a feature doesn’t need a lot of exposition can work, or it can flop. In this case, it feels as though the story kind of teetered on the verge of being too campy to really work since it definitely wasn’t too serious for its own good. The way this movie starts isn’t different from a lot of movies since it begins in a wooded area with a man holding a firearm and running for his life. The audience gets to see a caped figure moving about in the background before the man with the firearm rounds a tree and runs directly into this figure, who turns out to be a vampire that bites the individual right before a shaft of sunlight strikes the creature, vaporizing it. But what’s interesting is that the creature doesn’t even try to escape, as it appears to accept its fate. The bitten man turns instantly as the sunlight begins to sear his flesh. It’s only by luck that he manages to cover himself and find a shed on a nearby property to hole up in. There, it would appear that he seeks to rest for a while. 

credit: The Shed

The transition to Stan and Dommer isn’t a bad one, but Stan’s nightmare is kind of odd. 

Stan, who lives with his verbally abusive grandfather, isn’t exactly a popular kid since he and his buddy Dommer are picked on more often than not by the school bully, Marble. But Stan’s nightmare concerning what appears to be his mother and father is kind of odd since it might be used to explain why things are the way they are, but mostly it just feels out of place. When Stan finds that his shed has become a shelter for a ravenous vampire, he finds it necessary to discover a way to get rid of it, especially after it eats his grandfather’s dog and his grandfather. When his friend Dommer finds out about the creature, however, he has a few ideas concerning the creature that Stan is not on board with. The fact that Dommer wants to use the creature to punish their bullies is something that a lot of people could identify with but still comes off as the attempt of an immature individual who was never taught to deal with his emotions. 

As expected, the vampire runs amok, and Dommer is the reason. 

Friends like Dommer, in the movies at least, are some of the worst since they usually don’t realize the consequences of their actions and rely heavily on emotional responses more than anything. But when Dommer arrives to see Marble, who was beaten senseless by Stan at school, now turning the tables on Stan, he picks up a nearby gun and threatens Marble into the shed, where the vampire still lurks. By this point, the creature has eaten Stan’s grandfather and dog, and a deputy that came looking for the grandfather. Marble is added to the list before the shed is closed again and before Stan and Dommer begin to fight over how to use the shed. When Dommer knocks Stan out with the gun, a short amount of time passes in which Roxy, Stan’s crush at high school, arrives to see Stan wounded, a severed arm in the yard in front of the shed, and the door to the shed wide open. 

Honestly, as vampire movies go, this feels very basic. 

Not only do those who are bitten turn insanely quick, but there’s no real motivation other than to survive. That’s enough motivation, to be honest, since these creatures appear to be quite dangerous, but at the same time, they don’t appear to be overly intelligent either. In a lot of vampire movies, there are different levels on which the vampires exist, as the lesser creatures known as spawn don’t appear to be as intelligent and aren’t nearly as powerful, while those who have been vampires for longer tender to be stronger, more intelligent, and a lot more vicious. This movie feels like a free for all since the vampires turn quick, they’re not exactly the strongest creatures ever devised, and they’re not really that smart. 

It works for a campy horror movie. 

When all is said and done, this movie does work for the audience it’s bound to draw in. It doesn’t build itself up to be much more than a movie that exists in two major settings and doesn’t really need anymore, and the story is simple enough from start to finish to satisfy a lot of fans. Vampire movies don’t always have to be intelligent, to be fair, but it does help to have some sort of plot to work with.