User Reviews

The first MVD Rewind release I've had the chance to watch is 1988's Bram Stoker's Shadowbuilder. It's all about an evil archbishop and his followers who have brought a demon to our world with the hopes of destroying it. It's able to turn anything to shadows which fade away in the light, but that very same demon is also afraid of light. Yet with each kill, it grows stronger and harder to kill, as well as gaining the power to control dogs.

Now, the demon has a young boy in its crosshairs, as that child has the potential to be a saint. Killing him will open the doorway to Hell and allow more demons loose into our realm of existence. Luckily, a renegade priest named Jacob Vassey (Michael Rooker from Guardians of the Galaxy, but I'm certain readers of this site can name many other films he's been in) is ready to battle the Shadowbuilder. And hey! There's Tony Todd with long hair and an eye patch (he's also amazing in the making of feature, with every word out of his mouth sounding like poetry)! There's also a really interesting section where actor Andrew Jackson, who played the Shadowbuilder, talks about how the voice of the villain came to be.

I'm certain that in 1988, having the Catholic Church be the bad guys felt pretty edgy. But today? I think today we can all accept that they're probably housing Shadowbuilders. Also, if you're guessing that this story has little to do with the original story, then you were renting movies in the 1980's too! That said, the making of feature explains exactly how the original tale inspired it, including writer Michael Stokes, who has gone on to write for the kid's show Paw Patrol!

Director Jamie Dixon keeps things moving. He only has one other directing credit to his name, the TV movie Bats: Human Harvest. However, he's been the visual effects supervisor for films such as Prometheus, The Chronicles of Riddick, Titanic and so many more.

It hits all the buttons here - Michael Rooker, occult horror, killer dogs, a cool looking bad guy...it's as if it was made for this site!

BRAM STOKER'S SHADOWBUILDER is a typical B-flick action/horror from 1998, with absolutely no relation to the somewhat mystical Bram Stoker short story of the same title. This one features dependable Michael Rooker as a demon-slaying priest who's on the track of a sinister shadow demon summoned up by an evil archbishop in the film's OTT opening sequence. The demon has designs on a suburban kid, and the whole second half of the movie is a large set-piece sequence in which assorted heroes strive to protect the boy from the supernatural nasty. Generally this is a mixed bag of a movie, with some nice stylistic touches and okay CGI effects helping; the cast isn't too shabby either. But the demon in human form is just a guy in a Halloween mask and there's too little storyline and too much average direction to really make this zing.

I didn't hate this movie, nor did I hate Warlock (which was actually good) or End of Days (which I enjoyed, despite its many flaws). But it was, overall, almost entirely unremarkable. Not good, not great, not horrible. Hard to even really call it "so bad it's good".

The opening scene was certainly a strong point, with the heretical sect summoning the titular demon only to get shot dead by the obligatory black clad brooding 90s anti-hero, who also happens to be a priest. Everything after that, though, is pretty much downhill and very much standard 90s fare, complete with shoddy CGI (still not as bad as Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, so it least has that going for it). There's mention of another potential cell of the aforementioned sect, but nothing's ever made of that.

The Shadowbuilder itself left a lot to be desired. Andrew Jackson seems to be riding on the coattails of the now-late Julian Sands with maybe a dose of Andrew Divoff, but has none of the charm or charisma of either. He doesn't even look like the creature on the cover art, who, no, does not appear in the movie. His face is made of VERY obvious CGI darkness with a few vaguely discernible features. He also takes his sweet time claiming that sixth soul he apparently needs to become invincible, despite having AMPLE opportunity to claim almost any soul of his choice. Speaking of which, the rules about what souls he can and can't reap seems to change. On one hand, he tells an old man who killed his wife that his soul is useless to him, but also tells Father Vassey that his soul is ripe for claiming.

The sad thing of it is, is that the Shadowbuilder is the only characters I found interesting. Weirdly enough, I was rooting for him to succeed. So many movies (especially from this time period) that have a demonic bad guy trying to unmake the world, and they never win, either because they're too overconfident or stupid or because the cavalry always arrives at the last minute. Father Vassey may be a badass gun-toting man of the cloth, but after seeing one priest going through a crisis of faith, I've seen them all. Not even Tony Todd in his small role - which I like to call "Candymon" (get it? Because Tony Todd played Candyman and he has dreads in this movie, like your stereotypical Rastafarian who says "ey mon!" complete with a slight stereotypical Jamaican accent okay I'll get back to the review) - is much of a show stealer, even though that really seems like it's exactly what they were doing for. None of our side protagonists are very interesting, either, they're just kind of there and their only duty is to protect Chris (who's also pretty boring, despite being, apparently, a saint in the making).

There are a few unintentionally hilarious moments that stand out to me. For starters, while everyone in town is rioting and killing each other, there's a random stripper grinding against a stone cross and taking her top off. Then. After the Shadowbuilder tricks the aformentioned old man who killed his own wife (who is heavily implied to have killed the stripper) into chopping down the power lines, the power line falls on him and crushes him like a macabre Looney Toons scene. I actually burst out laughing at this scene. Finally, the Shadowbuilder tries to unmake the world by reciting the Book of Genesis backwards. When I say "backwards", I mean he reads the verses of the first chapter in reverse order, with every other sentence ending with "and". Contrast that with Warlock, where Julian Sands has to speak the true name of God backwards to undo creation, and you can't NOT laugh.

Maybe I'm a little too harsh on this movie. It's a direct to video effort, so of course it's not going to have the same impressive practical effects that Wishmaster did, or even much in the way of good talent (although they did get Michael Rooker and Tony Todd). But despite the small cult status Shadow Builder has gained over the couple decades since its release, I find it to be a mostly non-essential viewing. Also, while I have not read the story it takes its name from, the source material sounds absolutely nothing like this movie. Alas, it did have a cool holographic VHS cover, but it seems like those covers are oftentimes wasted on the movies they contain within.

This is an average-grade horror film based on the more primitive 1881 short story by Bram Stoker originally appearing in his collection entitled "Under The Sunset". Jamie Dixon, who's most prominent contributions were the visual effects on the James Cameron films of the 90's, takes a shot at directing this low budget effort featuring the intense acting ability of Michael "Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer" Rooker as a gun-toting Catholic priest on the hunt for a cult-leader turned demon wrecking havoc on a quiet town in the form of a shape-shifting shadow entity. Sure enough, the demon needs the soul sacrifice of a prophetic young boy (terribly portrayed by child actor Kevin Zegers.) It just so happens that the shadow demon is susceptible to the effects of bright light. (What a coincidence), and all this evil causes the town to go bonkers. Just about every plot device is predicable and contrived as typically dumb, hunky sheriff, Shawn Alex Thompson tries to piece it all together, and Tony Todd is just plain stupid as the wise-cracking town crazy, complete with phony "Pirates of the Caribbean" wig and eye-patch who is conveniently obsessed with artificial light. The visual effects and thinly crafted script are average at best as well as the demon creature itself. Overall, this has a lively pace, and Michael Rooker's pistol packing priest is a hoot. This little horror/action flick came around just when this type of genre was dying out, and the VHS craze was being replaced with the DVD revolution, so it is considered by many to be a "transitional rarity". You could do worse...considering.

Shadowbuilder may not be the best movie, but I really liked it. The effects were good and the acting was OK. I thought the story was good and it kept me in my seat. The Shadowbuilder was cool. I liked the way he took on the persona of his victims. When the town went postal I really had a good laugh at the man who wanted to use the ax on his wife's head again. LMAO! I would not consider it a true horror movie. It was more of a action/thriller with a little horror. There are no guts flying all over the place - which is what I consider horror. All of the victims are turned to a shadow which isn't horrific or gory. I would recommend Shadowbuilder. It deserved at least one look in my book. I have watched it numerous times.