SHADOWBUILDER
Bram Stoker, indeed

  Chock-full of nifty FX and ideas but woefully short on, well, anything else, Shadowbuilder claims to be based on something by Bram Stoker, though I can't find any reference to exactly which work this is.  I don't know of any Stoker works that have an ass-kicking priest packing twin laser-scope pistols.  Oh, there was Dracula...wait, that was a cowboy.  Never mind.

Michael Rooker plays this priest, whose aim must be awful indeed to rely on laser scopes in a foggy room (sure it looks cool, but that's a good way to give away your position and get yourself killed).  After busting up a flock of shadow-worshipping cult-type-people, he heads to small town America (actually Paris, Ontario) to find the kid that this cult was so fixated upon.  It turns out that some shadow demon entity thing has designs on this kid's fate, and thus, ultimate good and ultimate evil...yeah, you know the drill.  Tony Todd shows up for some reason, playing a crazy one-eyed Jamaican with a thing for Christmas lights.  It's kinda neat to see Candyman with dreadlocks.

The movie's half over before anybody bothers to explain even half of what's going on, and while Rooker's priest shows some nice inner conflict early on, he soon remembers that his primary job is kicking ass, and the interesting ideas at work here (particularly the use of shadows as intelligent, independent entities with their own strengths and weaknesses) are often sacrificed to seeing things go "poof" in a puff of dust.

The score often sounds (in both the sound quality and the nature of the music) like it's coming from another movie next door, and the villain's voice sounds like voice-over narration in a documentary, totally throwing me off every time he spoke up.  It doesn't help that the script tosses in words that don't even exist, like "rationization".  (to be fair, this may be the fault of actor Shawn Thompson and not screenwriter Michael Stokes)

But I was kind of absorbed anyway; the only thing here that's really all that hot is the FX (it is, admittedly, very cool to see some guy turned into a puff of dust in a surprisingly excellent effect for a straight-to-video production), but hey, sometimes that's enough to keep me diverted.  Still not enough for a recommendation, but you could do worse.

But, as usual, the kid's annoying.  Watch with a high tolerance for irritating movie kids, or stay away.

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