`There is a stretch in the Scottish Highlands that is 19,000 acres of dense, ancient woodland. Every year people go missing there… Some leave no Trace`

Ex- serviceman Cam played by Keenan Bee, and his men are the security detail in charge of escorting American ambassador plus his son Eli (Stuart Daly) and his daughter Dillon (Rebecca Finch) to a private function, in the beautiful Scottish Highlands. On their way to the function, they defend of an attempted kidnapping. Cam, his team plus the Ambassadors family find refuge in an army base, which has been abandoned since the eighties. With the team of kidnappers still very much in pursuit of them. They find him there, Kane played by Tony Greengrass. While the tension rises between everyone, and having to deal with a wounded ambassador. Kane tells them off the bases past. Now, they must deal with the consequences of this place and their own fears... As the horror of this building unfolds and they are picked off one by one…

Writer & director Simon Kay does a great job of building tension during the first two acts of the movie to the big reveal, for the third act. At a running time of just seventy four minutes, this is quite an achievement. It does not waste time with a lot of character development, and the majority of our cast are there to be picked off in a gruesome way. We do get to know Cam the best, with him having a bad dream, about a mission. Amelia Eve`s Elaine is another character that we get to know a bit and her friendship with Cam, and her motive for been there. Kane is the only other character that there is a little time spent with, so you can see the motivation behind his actions, and his connection to the base. The base and the horrific event that took place in the past, could be what lead Cam and the rest to take shelter there, or was it just fate?

You can clearly see that Kay is a fan of the Horror genre. From the opening titles, which I found to be very reminiscent of The Shining`s. Plus some of the camerawork throughout, came straight from Evil Dead, to me.  I`m not a big fan of horror films, I do like the classics. Modern horror is just too much gore porn and also very same, nothing really new. Kay tries the old fashioned way of less is more, for the first two thirds of the film and it works well, leading to the gorier finale. Though it is not just gore for the sake of it, there is also a nice balance of action and horror.  Yes, it is very rough around the edges but that gives the film, the old fashioned look feel throwing back to horror films of the seventies and eighties…  So maybe that rough edges are intentional. Horror must be one of the hardest genres to make and take something new too. So hats off to Simon Kay, his cast and crew for taking this on and making Shadowland. It is worth checking out if you are a fan of both action and horror genres...