Shapeshifter (2005) — Triskaidekafiles

SHAPESHIFTER

WRITERS: Story by Allie Everett Howe
Screenplay by Allie Everett Howe and Grergory Lemkin

DIRECTOR: Gregory Lemkin

STARRING: Jennifer Lee Wiggins as Ginny
Ocean as Tyrese
Chris Facey as Riggs
Vaz Anders as Velku
Marat Glazer as Marcoux

QUICK CUT: An immigrant reconnects with a childhood friend in the most unlikely of places.

THE MORGUE

Ginny - A former soldier, release on a not exactly dishonourable discharge, and new seeking to become a deputy. She has to put in her time as a prison guard first, and that’s how we got here. She’s stubborn, doesn’t like authority, and takes no shit.

Riggs - An inmate Ginny knew as a kid. He looks out for her, and seems like a nice guy for a con.

Tyrese - Another convict, and he’s the loudmouth of the group. Sassy punk kid who gets in everyone’s face, and probably hates authority more than Ginny.

Marcoux - A Romanian criminal who works for their mafia, and is turning state’s evidence on them when the plot catches up with him. He’s only looking out for number one.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! This week wraps up all American month, with the story of a demonic entity trapped in a prison, called Shapeshifter, because what is more American than the military industrial complex or the Olympics? Satanism! ...Wait no, that's not right. What's more American than all that? The prison industrial complex!

Also, this is a movie from The Asylum, well known for their mockbusters...but is this my first Asylum movie?? AH no, there was 13/13/13. But let us not speak of that.

We open on a pair of Eastern European men transporting someone via truck, who needs to be released to feed, and one of them is worried they might see him when they let him out. More on this later.

They let him out anyways, and the dude finds his way to a quaint little no tell motel, and takes out a john and the prostitute he's with. Gotta get some nudity in there somehow, I guess. Oh, also, he's a regular dude until he kills them and is then this giant beast of a monster.

Okay, I have a few criticisms on your blowjob technique…

We pick up the main plot with Ginny Lydon, a soldier who was let go from service, and is now getting a job as a guard at the prison the rest of this movie will be taking place in. They try to use this to paint her as a troublemaker, but nothing really comes of it.

She is then given the tour of the facility, as are we, establishing the location and cast, most notably that the main gate through the "portral" into the prison has trouble with getting stuck. It's a minor plot point, but does serve to trap our cast eventually.

During the tour, one of the convicts recognises her, since they were in the foster system together, and he's like a big brother to her. Most of the prisoners are painted as pretty chill, non violent types, with a few violent offenders still in lock up. It is all very casual.

Meanwhile, there's a new intake inmate, and oh, it's the beast from earlier in his human form.

We’d give him a shirt, but we need to establish the tattoo.

After a bit, the night drags on, and the tattooed man starts chewing into his arm like it's a chicken wing. Eventually, he removes a medallion, and there had to be an easier way.

He then proceeds to chant and meditate and go all Jacob's Ladder step processing on us, while the guards just kinda...calmly watch. That's a bit mean, since eventually Ginny does go hey, this is weird, y'all!

They assume he's having a seizure, and start to transport him out of his cell, which is the precise moment everything goes wrong.

Once they're in the "portal" the dude freaks out, and kicks Ginny out, so he can eat the Asian dude first. She slams the door shut, trapping the beast inside the portal, and that's the end of the movie, right?

He gets into the control room though, kills the guard there, and slowly works out how to operate the door. But to get back into the prison, not out.

Ginny gets all the inmates in the immediate vicinity into a single cell, and locks the gate with a pair of handcuffs.

See, just a short time later, and he’s already hungry again…

Someone points out the dude was chanting Romanian, and they have another Romanian inmate there, a snitch for the feds, and he confirms the beast is there for him. It's a part of the Romanian mafia, an enforcer they employ to clean up messes like this. So less a creature from Hell, and more a creature from…Romania, then.

This is also where they establish that anyone who sees the beast's true face is killed, to protect its identity, so even if they fed him Marcoux, they'd still be on the chopping block.

Ginny starts brainstorming alternate ways out, and it's a good thing this ain't Alcatraz, and is in serious disrepair. The crew starts working to tear some bars out of the water damaged ceiling to climb and crawl to another part of the prison

I’m not trapped in here with you! You’re trapped in here with ME!!

They get into some office spaces, and the monster isn't far behind. Although it has some extra bars to tear through since it's considerably larger.

Ginny organizes the crew to look around for weapons or a way out, and we spend a bit of time splitting up like a good little horror movie. It's a good bit to catch our breath, calm down, and do some character stuff with the inmates.

Meanwhile, the beast is lurking about, picking off the ten little Indians one by one. You would think in a movie called "Shapeshifter" we'd be doing the whole paranoia, other forms, who can we trust? thing, but no. He just shapes his shift between his singular human and monster form. I feel ripped off. It's much more Alien 3 than The Thing.

Also, they keep saying things like "If it's human, now's our chance" and they are making a LOT of assumptions about this creature, with very little to go on. I guess stabbing a normal lookin' dude is arguably, clearly an easier task than the guy who looks like he could stunt double Bigfoot.

Riggs and Marcoux come across the Beast, and the Romanian snitch shivs Ginny's big brother figure in the neck, and offers him up to the creature. So much for that subplot.

Marcoux returns to the group and makes up a story that the beast got Riggs. We continue to look for a way out, or up, and come across a convenient set of backup security monitors.

They find video evidence of Marcoux chatting up the monster, and confront him about it. He reveals the beast isn't there to actually kill him, but is instead his assigned protector, and is there to free him.

He's actually known the man since they were kids. I guess they played cops and mafia in Romanian schoolyards together. We also learn the creature's name is Velkou, but I hear that's just short for Velkouver.

So they tie up Marcoux, lure in the creature, and get him to accidentally kill his charge. Well, that's one way to fail at your job.

With that taken care of, they still have to figure a way out of the prison, without getting killed in the process. Or at least, not everyone.

They find an elevator shaft hidden behind some boxes, to get up the the third floor, and the movie's requisite gentle giant goes to serve as a distraction, and get a bit of revenge for his dead friends.

He does not do a very good job at either task, as the beast handles him pretty swiftly, and smashes Leonard's head into parts one through six on the floor.

While Ginny and the lone surviving inmate climb through the shaft, they just so happen to stumble into the prison's gas chamber. Convenient, that.

So they once again lure the creature towards them, trap him inside, and gas the heck out of the beast.

In an expected twist, this actually doesn't kill the monster, and it manages to grab Ginny, but she sees the medallion embedded in its chest and rips it out, because nothing has been established about this.

Velkou returns to his human form, and Ginny stabs him good. We get a quick wrap up in a hospital with Tyrese, and Ginny checking in on him, where she's now wearing the medallion, and I can't tell if they're trying to insinuate she is now the shapeshifter.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks fine, but that’s about it. Maybe a bit dark at times. About what you’d expect from a basic mid 2000s dvd.

Audio: Just as fine as the video.

Sound Bite: “My brother, I forgive you, because you're a dumbass infidel."

Body Count: I’ll give the movie this, it tears through a lot of bodies.

1 - A man gets gutted and eaten by the shapeshifter in a motel room.
2 - And then so does his hooker.
3 - Asian cops gets eaten
4 - Another of the guards gets his guts ripped out.
5 - Prisoner Pedro gets torn in half.
6 - Father gets smooshed
7 - Jimmy gets stabbed in the chest
8 - Marcoux kills Riggs
9 - Marcoux is accidentally killed by the monster
10 - Mohammad finally dies from his blood loss.
11 - The monster turns Leonard's head into pulp
12 - Velkou finally dies after being gassed and knifed.

Best Corpse: There’s some good choices here, actually. But I think I’ll go with Leonard. It’s one of the deaths you feel the most for, and is a bloody squishy head splat.

Blood Type - A: There’s a lot of blood here. And while the monster looks a bit basic and goofy, like he should be the Golgothan shit demon in Dogma, the blood is solid. The torn apart bodies, the body parts, blood covered prisoners waiting to bleed out. The movie delivers on that, at least.

Sex Appeal: Topless prostitute at the start of the movie, and a shirtless con or two.

Drink Up! every time they point out the monster is human.

Movie Review: I kinda like this movie. I don’t love it though. It’s a very okay movie. It’s at least trying more than it’s not. I still feel like it doesn’t deliver on the promise of the promotion, though. There’s no real shapeshifting paranoia, and the creature has nothing to do with Hell. There is a lot of lore, and a lot of stuff that should be significant, but we’re rarely if ever let in on anything. The medallion is important, because they show it to us, but it’s never really expanded on. The tattoo feels important, because it’s shown so prominently with lots of shirtless excuses, but it’s never really gone into. There’s lore and backstory we get hints of, but also not really. They actually get more into it during the deleted scenes, and that’s always frustrating. You even have a priest who says he’s in the dark arts, and could’ve given us more in depth stuff. The characters are fun and entertaining though, and the dynamics keep things interesting, but this is all very “seen it before, and seen it better” type of movie. Two out of five medallions.

Entertainment Value: Seeing just how bloody the movie gets at times definitely catches the attention. And the performances and chemistry between the characters is the other main highlight. But it’s not very memorable. It’s very much something you’d see on the Scifi Channel on Saturday night. To the point I’m sure it’s exactly that. Three out of five handcuffs.