Shady Grove

Shady Grove suffers from dialogue and pacing issues. Everyone else recites lines that sound like lines. It’s directed like a stage play with rigid blocking considering the material everyone is given to work with feels like recited dialogue.

Mixing elements of folk horror and home invasion tropes, Shady Grove is an entertaining enough tale that hits the right spots when it needs to.

With a nice supporting turn from Becki Hayes as the local sheriff, this is a film whose secrets lie as much in what we don’t see as what we do.

Takes too long to get going, and once it does, has to rush to make up for lost time. Attempts to create trust issues between the two leads never work as they are brought up and dropped constantly. Would have been fine as a straightforward horror film.