The Shed (2019)

Director: Frank Sabatella

Writers: Frank Sabatella, Jason Rice (Story)

Cast: Jay Jay Warren, Cody Kostro, Sofia Happonen

The 80s were an incredible time for horror, a turning point for the genre that defined how modern horror movies are made. It gave birth to some of the most famous names in the genre since the Universal Monsters of the 30s, 40s, and 50s. With Freddy Krueger and Jason Vorhees becoming household names, some tropes started to see a bit of fame as well. High school teenagers in danger is a pretty big one, and it has been used time and time again in serious films as well as parodies, and despite many of us who watch horror are passed that age, we can’t help but love watching these characters. There’s a level of relatability to them that we may not recognize at first, but we tend to connect with characters who are outcasts, empaths, and even bullies. The nostalgia from watching modern horror movies that pay homage to the decade that many of us favor is part of what makes some of them so fun to watch. The Shed delivers some of that nostalgia…and nearly nothing else.

When 17-year-old delinquent Stan (Jay Jay Warren) finds a vampire hiding out in his backyard shed, he tries his best to keep the secret and those around him safe—attempts that turn out deadly results. Sounds like quite a promising concept, right? Well, only in concept, here. The Shed starts off fun enough, with plenty of tropes that’ll make you feel like you’re watching a movie from the 80s—Outcasts vs Bullies (that drive a T-Bird), local cops that are a bit of a joke, and an abusive guardian that you just can’t wait to see become a victim (in this case, Stan’s grandfather). They even nail the hammy overacting we’re used to seeing in many slashers. It’s charming, for about 20 minutes, then it quickly wears off and proceeds to give us scenes of awkwardly forced exposition that don’t come into play later while other pieces of information come up without any setup at all. We get a lack of story that feels cartoonish at times and deeply serious in just one scene, which I’d love to bring up.

Dommer (Cody Kostro) is Stan’s best friend who is relentlessly bullied by a group of jerks at school. An hour into the movie, long after Stan reveals his secret to him, he has the idea to lure the bullies into the shed, feeding them to the vampire as a means of dishing out some justice. He proposes this to Stan while having an anger fueled breakdown as he holds the lead bully at gunpoint. Now, there is some seriously deep emotions at play with this character. All the time he spent getting beaten up and abused caught up with his sanity and he snapped. It’s a subject that many people may find sensitive but relatable, and part of what makes horror such an incredible genre is that it has no fear to touch on subjects like this, brutally if necessary. Here, we have a couple of minutes of intense suspense in which we legitimately don’t know what Dommer is going to do. It was the best scene of the movie and the only scene I truly enjoyed. If we had been watching this movie from Dommer’s point-of-view we would’ve gotten a very different, and much better movie. He had something to say. He had an arc. Sadly, he was the only character worth paying attention to. The rest of the movie was too wrapped up in its own irrelevant nostalgia to tell a compelling story. (For the record, I know the movie takes place in the 80s [or 90s. It wasn’t explicitly clear] but we don’t need to spend so much time trying to emulate the era. Just get on with telling a story)

Aside from Dommer, the characters were flat, even our protagonist. No one really grew at all and Stan just had a series of very awkward, chemistry-devoid interactions with everyone he encountered, even the people closest to him. It’s tough to care about anyone and it’s easy to sit back and wait until the people that need to die are dead and the credits start rolling. I hoped that the cinematography would have been a saving grace, anticipating some interesting shots that would keep my attention from a visual standpoint, but what I got were basic textbook shots that got me through the scenes, but served no other purpose. It all seemed a bit amateurish down to the three (yes, THREE) unnecessary dream sequences—one with a dream-within-a-dream—that were put in for scares?…exposition?…it doesn’t matter. Unless the story revolves around dreams, it should probably cool it with those sequences.

Unfortunately, The Shed had tons of potential with a decent premise and a layered supporting character but turned out being a lazily put together missed opportunity. Truthfully, it felt like a short film (which is in Director’s Frank Sabatella’s wheelhouse) with filler to fit the feature length run time and as one it would have been one hell of a fun movie. I can only hope this was a learning experience and that future works from this filmmaker will take advantage of their opportunities.

The Shed is available to stream on Shudder.