THE SHED (Film Review)

                           Starring: Jay Jay Warren, Sofia Happonen, Cody Kostro

                                               Directed by: Frank Sabatella

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 Bullies - we've all had them at one phase in our lives, and the way to deal with them (in some cases, anyway) is to turn the other cheek and hope that the novelty of said bullying will grow stale and subside. On the other claw, you could always resort to swift and blinding violence in order to quell the problem altogether...of course there usually are repercussions to the latter.

 Directed by Frank Sabatella, The Shed is one of those movies that attempts to put a little meat in with its ample dosage of potatoes, relying on one of those colossal issues that continues to plague our youth still in this day and age. Teenage orphan Stan (Warren) is living in the home of his class-A shitbag grandfather (Timothy Bottoms), and if he's not being mentally and physically abused by ol' Gramps, he's getting his fill of it from the small-town scumbag named Marbles (Chris Petrovsky). Even Stan's best bud Dommer (Kostro) is getting a taste of the sadistic treatment, and the two are left to face facts: it seems like all hope is lost in this tiny burgh. How will Stan and Dommer overcome this particularly damaging series of events that just doesn't relent in its cruelty? The answer might be closer than they think...like "in the backyard" close - Stan's grandpa's shed houses quite the nasty vampire inside and with a bit of underhanded scheming, Stan's bullying issues could very well be a thing of the past, but at what cost?

   The idea that a bullied teen can exact some revenge in a funny, horror-fueled way is fun to an extent, but the film walks a very familiar line with its execution and unveils itself in its latter stages as an assembly-line product that fans of the genre will swear that they've witnessed before. One of the pluses however is the origin story of the shed itself that we all get to see - it's a nice accompaniment that Sabatella adds to assist the plot's frame, but sadly it's not enough to keep the reminder of the film from dragging. Lovers of gore certainly won't be disappointed with the amount of crimson glory splashing around, but as with every pro there's a con, and the dialogue here borders on somewhat inane in essence. At the end of it all, The Shed has a message (and a rather demented solution to an ever-growing problem), but it's overall appearance and familiar subtext is its undoing -  worth a one-timer at best.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5