Big shoutout to the kind folks over at Well Go USA Entertainment for sending over an early screener of Shaman, the latest horror film directed by Antonio Negret and written by Daniel Negret. This one stars Sara Canning, Daniel Gillies, Jett Klyne, and Alejandro Fajardo, among others. Anytime Well Go USA sends something over, I’m always excited to dive in—whether I end up liking it or not. And in this case… I really wanted to like it more than I did.
Let’s start with what worked. Right out of the gate, the cinematography is gorgeous. The film was shot on location in Ecuador, and it absolutely takes advantage of that. The scenery is beautiful, the use of practical sets and landscapes adds a lot of depth, and the visual presentation overall is strong. Add to that some solid costume and set design, a creepy score, and sound design that supports the tension—technically, this is a really well-made film.
The performances are also solid. No one blew me away, but everyone shows up to do their job. Sara Canning is definitely the highlight, carrying a lot of the emotional and horror weight as the mother trying to save her possessed son. Jett Klyne, who plays the son, does well in a tough role. Some moments felt a bit cheesy, but that felt more like a dialogue issue than anything else. Across the board, the acting gets the job done.
But for all the technical strength, the script just didn’t do enough for me. You’ve seen this movie before—maybe not in Ecuador, or with this specific mix of languages (English, Spanish, and Quechua), which definitely gave the film a unique flavor—but narratively, it’s familiar ground. Missionaries in a remote village. A forbidden cave. A kid gets possessed. A Catholic priest shows up, but it turns out the entity is older than Christianity. Then a local shaman is brought in. You already know the beats before they happen.
That doesn’t automatically make a movie bad, but Shaman just didn’t add anything new to the formula. It’s got the traditional jump scares, the escalating weirdness, the inevitable exorcism sequence. And yeah, it’s well shot and the music hits right—but I never felt truly invested in the characters. The pacing is another issue. There are bursts of momentum and creepy sequences that had me locked in, but they’re short-lived and spaced out between long stretches of familiar horror setups that we’ve all seen a hundred times.
By the time the credits rolled, I found myself shrugging. Not because it was bad—it’s not. It’s totally serviceable. I could see someone catching this on streaming and thinking, “Yeah, that was fine.” But I don’t think anyone’s going to be talking about Shaman for long after watching it. I just watched it, and I already don’t think I’ll be thinking about it again in a week.
There’s a term people throw around a lot these days—“mid”—and I don’t like how it gets used to undercut solid work. But in the true spirit of what “mid” should mean? Shaman is a textbook example. It’s got things going for it, especially visually, but as a story, it fades into the crowd of other possession films almost instantly.
Rating: 5.5/10