Review of the film ‘Shepherd’ (2021)

Eric is a young widower that is troubled about his wife’s accidental death. He keeps having nightmares in which a hooded figure dressed up in black rags is stalking him. After he finds a newspaper advert searching for a shepherd, he takes the job and goes with his dog to an isolated island off the coast of Scotland where he is the only human around, with the only interruption of an old female fisher bringing in supplies every once in a while. But then his nightmares become intertwined with strange visions, and his sanity is on the line.

The story belongs to the horror subgenre where things happen because of the protagonist refusing to recall some traumatic memory. But the developments of the story just fail to keep the tension: what we get is a succession of scares that get nightmarish and bloody, but never real. For a TV episode, it might have worked; but for a 103-minute long feature film, it gets so much boring as for the spectator to begin hoping for something really horrible to happen at last. The final twist would make a good fit for a detective story, but makes a lame one for a horror story.

Russell Owen, writer and director, directs better than he writes. He makes a good use of the camera, plays the scares to great effect aided by good music from Callum Donaldson, and captures the loneliness of the Scottish landscape aided by the excellent cinematography from Richard Stoddard. The sound and visual effects are good too.

As for the acting, Tom Hughes performs a fine protagonist that keeps the interest in spite of being on-screen all of the time. His performance isn’t perfect though – there are a couple of times where it seems shallow. Kate Dickie makes a good performance and Greta Scacchi surprises with a highlighted, strong performance of the protagonist’s mother.

All in all, a horror film too much stretched out. 2 out of 5.

Title:	Shepherd
Genre:	Horror
Year:	2021
Nationality:	United Kingdom
Colour:	Colour
Director:	Russell Owen
Writer:	Russell Owen
Cast:	Tom Hughes, Kate Dickie, Greta Scacchi, Gaia Weiss, Jamie Marie Leary, Shuggie, Debbie Mackay, Gordon Brown, Jatinder Singh Randhawa, Nick Duncalf, Richard Payne
Producer:	Sam Orams, Russell Owen, Aslam Parvez, Karim Prince Tshibangu
Production designer:	Chris Richmond
Cinematographer:	Richard Stoddard
Film editor:	Jim Page,Christopher Thornton
Casting:	Gemma Sykes
Art Director:	Sivo Gluck, Martin Kelly
Set Decorator:	Mohammad Shatat, Dominic Smithers
Costume Designer:	Gigi Siegel
Music:	Callum Donaldson
Running time:	103 minutes
Language:	English