Shortwave (2016 film)

Promotional image for Shortwave (2016 film)....

Summary

"Some stones are best left unturned." Based on a theory of the origins of shortwave radio frequencies, Shortwave is the story of a grief-stricken mother of an abducted child who begins having strange visions of sinister, shadowy creatures after moving into a new home with her husband and his radio experiments.

Details

• Release Date: 2016
• Country/Language: USA, English
• Genres/Technical: science fiction, horror
• Setting: Modern rural USA; Delta Green
• Runtime: 1 hr 25 min
• Starring: Juanita Ringeling, Tina Feliciano, Nina Senicar
• Director: Ryan Gregory Phillips
• Writer: Ryan Gregory Phillips
• Producer/Production Co: Cue Mark Film
• View Trailer: (link)
• IMDB Page: (link)

Ratings

MPAA Ratings

• Rated: not rated (equivalent to R for violence, sexual situations, language, etc.)

Tentacle Ratings

A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:

• SS___ (Two Tentacles: Barely Lovecraftian; vaguely similar in tone, could be a very loose adaptation)

Essentially an uncredited adaptation of Lovecraft's "From Beyond (fiction)" with the serial numbers filed off (I'm not sure why they bothered, as Lovecraft's story would be in the public domain by now!) The only significant difference is in using ordinary shortwave radio as a weird technology for seeing things man was not meant to see, and "shadow people" in place of tentacle-monsters.

Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.

Reviews

Review Links:

• Dennis Schwartz at (Ozus World Movie Reviews (B)) - "This is a good film for those who can relate to horror pics that are intellectually scary rather than just violently scary."
• Y. Whateley - 1/5 - Could have been a creepy adaptation of one of Lovecraft's most frequently-filmed stories, but unfortunately, any attempt at cosmic horror is undermined by the film taking a long, un-atmospheric time to get started, and then by hanging the horror awkwardly over a lame plot twist that didn't really feel earned. Perhaps not coincidentally, the plot twist also happens to mark the point in the film where the quality of the acting took a marked turn for the less convincing, resulting in a film that felt to me like it was squandering an otherwise effective horror story. For a short time between the point where the radio is introduced and the point where the cast starts getting killed off, there is some effective psychological horror and some creepy hallucinations/visions/dreams, and the "shadow people" are effectively unsettling, but I couldn't recommend the film for much more than that.

Synopsis (SPOILERS)

 Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)
Based on a theory of the origins of shortwave radio frequencies, Shortwave is the story of a grief-stricken mother of an abducted child who begins having strange visions of sinister, shadowy creatures after moving into a new home with her husband and his radio experiments. As the visions grow more and more intense and are joined by episodes of uncontrolled violence, the woman begins to realize that she is the subject of her husband's experiments: he is attempting to contact extra-terrestrial horrors using shortwave radio tuned to his wife's grief and terror. When the creatures finally make their full appearance, the result is a bloodbath, and only the woman is able to walk away alive....

Notes

Associated Mythos Elements

• fiction: the premise strongly resembles that of "From Beyond (fiction)" by H.P. Lovecraft
• artifact: a short-wave radio tuned to a hellish frequency used by monsters from another dimension
• race: Shadow People