Shelter Information

Shelter is a supernatural horror-thriller directed by Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein, written by Michael Cooney, and starring Julianne Moore and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The film was released as 6 Souls in the United States on March 1, 2013 for video on demand, followed by a limited theatrical release on April 5, 2013.

Plot

Widowed psychiatrist Cara (Julianne Moore) is at an airport planning to go home. She calls her daughter Sam (Brooklynn Proulx) from the airport, who is being looked after by Cara's brother Stephen (Nathan Corddry). Cara receives an intriguing call from her father, Dr. Harding (Jeffrey DeMunn). He tells her about a new patient he would like Cara to meet. Cara mildly protests, but her father hangs up on her. Despite her hesitation, she decides to meet the patient.

Cara meets the patient (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who is unable to walk and is wheeled into the room. He introduces himself as David Bernburg. She performs tests, including questionnaires, Rorschach and colorblindness tests, that seem fairly normal. After the tests, Cara talks with her father, questioning him about the need to meet with David. Doctor Harding then picks up the phone and calls the line in the room where David is seated. After several rings, David answers the phone, and Doctor Harding asks for Adam. David says he is the only one in the room. Doctor Harding asks David to get Adam. Suddenly, David convulses and after several seconds, a different voice is on the phone saying, "This is Adam." Cara re-enters the room and talks to David, who is now Adam. Cara introduces herself, and Adam speaks of her husband who was murdered. Cara runs some tests, which reveal that Adam is color blind. Before Cara leaves the room, Adam was shown able to stand straight. Doctor Harding then gives his daughter all of the files about Adam.

Cara then meets with Dr. Charlie, who has known Cara for years and affectionately refers to her as 'Little C.C.', to get more information about Adam/David. Later, Cara calls Dr. Charlie, who is ill with a cough, to remind him to send over the files on Adam/David. After assuring Cara that he will send over the files, and that the antibiotics will take care of his cough, Charlie is shown having some wounds over the back of his neck. As he continues to cough, he suddenly begins coughing up dirt and collapses.

Cara tells her father that David is an invention of Adam. Cara investigates further into David. She locates his yearbook, in which she finds the name David Bernburg under the photo of another man. Cara then finds David's address and meets David's mother, who tells Cara that David is dead. Cara speaks with David's mother and learns that he was bound to a wheelchair after an accident but was seeking to find a cure that would allow him to walk again. David left home and was later found tortured and dead. David's mother tells Cara that, losing faith after his accident, he 'turned his back on God'.

Cara then meets with her father again and discusses what she learned about David. Adam was only 6 years old, when David was found dead. Cara believes that Adam was creating an impersonation of David who was murdered 25 years ago. Cara then arranges a meeting with David's mother to try to help Adam. Dr. Harding calls on the phone during the meeting, and Adam transforms into David and talks to his mother. David/Adam relates information about his mother that only David could know, like the nail she carries in her pocket at all times to ward off evil. David's mother gets upset and after slapping him in the face, leaves.

Cara decides to bring Adam/David to the place where David Bernburg was found dead. David has a panic attack and says the devil is coming. Cara tries to move David but the wheelchair is stuck. Cara calls her driver for help, and as she turns around she finds David standing up, asking her questions, and telling her his name is Wes.

Cara confronts her Dad for not telling her about the other personality. Cara goes on to find out about Wesley Crite, a front man for a band, who allegedly committed suicide. Cara then talks to Wes and shows him a newspaper clipping of Wesley's death. Wes convulses again and falls to the floor as David. He tells Cara that "he was here" and then hums a tune. Cara goes on to meet David's mother again and confirms that the tune was David's song, that he sang whenever he was scared or upset. They agree he was probably humming this song while he was being tortured and murdered. This causes Cara to believe that possibly a young Adam witnessed the murder and this is why he is impersonating David.

Cara decides to check Adam's old house, thinking she will find something to help her further understand Adam and why he is impersonating two dead men. There she finds a dead body with a cross etched on the man's back. She calls the police and after discussing with the detective that this was not her 'first dead body', she realizes she forgot to pick up Sammy. The detective tells her she can leave and that the police will pick up Adam for questioning. Cara goes to pick up her daughter Sammy, sees her talking to Adam and calls the detective. Cara tells Adam to leave them alone, but Adam seems confused and insists she invited him. He then calls her 'Little C.C.', to which Cara responds with shock. Adam continues on saying, "It's me, Charles."

Cara goes again to find David's mother and asks her about the cross etching. David's mother tells her to seek a "Granny" and ask about the sign. Cara finds "Granny", who is a blind, old, scary-looking woman. A strange child approaches Cara, and Granny tells her, without looking at the picture of the cross, that it is a "Holler's Cross", but refuses to describe it further. She says that Cara is not ready to believe. As Cara is leaving, she hears a scream and returns to the house. Cara sees Granny "curing" a man by seemingly sucking his soul from his mouth, breathing it in a container, pulling a tumor from his stomach, and then blowing it back into the man, to live again. She then tells Cara that the container is called a 'shelter', showing her that the cross symbol is drawn on the container.

Meanwhile Cara's brother, Stephen, who is watching Sammy, has discovered that the video of David while sleeping and convulsing has an interesting audio recording. The voice in the recording is saying "Reverend Christian Moore, shelter now the faithless". After Cara leaves Granny's, she listens to her voicemails, one from the detective telling her they didn't have enough to hold Adam so they released him into her father's care, and another voicemail from Stephen, telling her what he discovered on the video. She immediately calls Stephen who tells her that she can meet with a man named Monty who knows everything about it. It seems that Monty's father documented the 1918 influenza epidemic on film. During the epidemic a reverend/ faith healer comes, telling the people that the cure lies in believing in the Lord. However, the reverend was a fake, had lost his faith in God. When his followers found this out, they murdered the reverend's two young daughters. The Granny took the reverend to deliver a "mountain-justice", in which Granny sucked the soul out of his mouth, blows it out into the air and then stuffs dirt into his mouth, so his soul cannot return.

As Cara and Monty watch the video, she gets a call from the detective. She is then shown calling her father to tell him that Adam is not actually Adam and that the dead man she found was actually Adam Saber, facts she just learned from the detective. Her father, confused, asked who he was then. Cara answers that she does not know, but as she turns around she sees 'Adam' on the video she was watching with Monty, and realizes that 'Adam' is actually the Reverend Christian Moore, and that he is now taking his revenge. She tries to convince her father to leave, but Adam has reached Dr. Harding, and the line gets disconnected. When she tries to call back, the line is busy, so Cara calls the man at her father's front desk and frantically asks him to go check on her father. He finds Dr Harding dead on the floor, Adam having sucked his soul out.

Cara calls Stephen and finds out that he was taking Sammy to the hospital. Cara tries to convince Stephen to bring her to the Granny, telling him that she is not sick and that no doctor can help her now. But Adam shows up at Stephen's as he is walking out to take Sammy to the hospital, so they lock the door and run upstairs to hide, telling Cara that the 'freakshow' just showed up in dad's car. Adam is now Cara and Stephen's father. He begs them to let him in, saying that a bad man is coming to get Sammy. They continue to hide, Cara staying on the phone with Sammy to keep her calm. Adam ends up getting inside and by accident, knocks Stephen out while busting down the bathroom door that they are hiding in. Cara asks Sammy to put her on speaker phone and then tells Adam to put David on the phone. Adam/Dr Harding falls to the floor after turning into David, who was in a wheelchair. Stephen then wakes up and agrees to meet Cara at Granny's. Once they are there, Cara discovers that Sammy is showing the mark of the Holler's Cross on her back. When Granny is confronted with Sammy, she says that its a terrible thing to lose faith in God. Sammy tells her that her Daddy died and that is why. Granny tells her that the sheltering has begun and its too late for her, but Cara refuses to accept that. The little girl with Granny suddenly screams loudly and Adam is seen outside through the window. Cara picks up Sammy and runs into the woods. Adam catches up with them, knocks Cara out and gets to Sammy. As Adam sucks Sammy's soul into his body, he becomes Sammy. Adam-Sammy is frightened and goes to Cara, who embraces him and whispers the prayer that she and Sammy say every night. Then she tightens her grip around Adam/Sammy's neck and strangles him. They struggle and Adam is killed. Cara rushes over to Sammy's body and embraces her. Sammy begins to move her fingers and comes back to life. Cara embraces her tightly as Sammy starts to hum David's song.

Cast

• Julianne Moore as Cara
• Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Adam
• Jeffrey DeMunn as Dr. Harding
• Frances Conroy as Mrs. Bernburg
• Nathan Corddry as Stephen
• Joyce Feuller as Granny Holler Witch
• KatiAna Davis as The Familiar
• Michael Graves as Holler Man
• Rick Applegate as Warden Collins
• Nicole Leigh Belle as Random Street Walker
• Aaron Bernard as 1982 State Trooper
• Jim Brough as Holler Man
• Jeffrey Jones as Police Officer
• Drew Levinson as Governor's Attorney
• Brooklynn Proulx as Sammy
• Diane Jonardi as Granny Holler Witch 1918

Production

Filming took place in Pittsburgh starting in March 2008. Some scenes were shot at the 18th century village at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter, and at the Braddock Carnegie Library.

Release

The United Kingdom release was set with a cinema release on April 9, 2010.

Reception

The film has been met with entirely negative reviews, garnering a 4% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Mike Sheridan from Entertainment.ie gave the film two stars out of five stating Shelter is 'A thriller desperately trying to throw the audience off at every corner, just as writer Michael Cooney's previous screenplay effort Identity did to mostly stellar effect, Shelter is instead a whole lot of stupid wrapped in moody packaging.' Mark Harrison from Den of Geek gave a more positive review, calling it 'horror by numbers, but it's at least sparing with whatever felt tip pen denotes ?jump scares.