Parts of John Fallon's The Shelter feel generally and specifically familiar. If you enjoy the kind of haunted-house flicks where home movies randomly play on the TV and warped-faced ghost girls yell at the camera, this will fit like a glove. If you saw 2015's Shelter, in which Jennifer Connelly plays a homeless alcoholic who, for a time, seeks refuge in an unlocked luxury apartment, you may get déjà vu watching Michael Paré do the same thing. But there's far more at play here than jump-scares, apparitions, and booze: in a bold mid-film twist, the God of Fallon’s universe chews Thomas up and spits him out into a very different world than the one he’d left behind. On a dime, The Shelter becomes a moving exercise in faith and self-reconciliation that suggests He not only works in mysterious ways, but is also kind of a bastard.
Listen to Kicking the Seat Podcast #164 for an interview with writer/director John Fallon!