Main cast: Aaron Ashmore (Marcus), Cindy Sampson (Carmen), Trevor Matthews (Henryk), Meghan Heffern (Sara), and Vieslav Krystyan (Arkadiusz)
Director: Jon Knautz

You know, all those horror movies set in the dangerous outdoors would at least be halved in number if townsfolk would just do as they were told. No, these people will not be told what to do, and that’s how they get everyone around them in trouble.

Carmen, a journalist, is falling out with her boyfriend Marcus, a photographer. They are both busy people, but while he is willing to take time out for them, he feels that she lets her work get in the way of their time together. She insists that he is wrong, just a few seconds before she has to pause their argument to take a work call. Yes, that will show him!

A tourist, Eric, vanished while visiting the wilderness of Poland, and Carmen has reached out to Eric’s mother to access the man’s notes that will provide clues as to his fate. She wants to do a scoop on this, but her boss thinks that there are hotter news to spend time on.

Undaunted, she decides to go investigate on her own. To show that she is not letting work consume all her time, she invites Marcus along with her on this trip, to prove that she too can take time out of work for romance. Hey, she’s not doing this on official work capacity, so that counts right?

So she, Marcus, and her intern Sara all end up in this village of unfriendly people that warn them to leave things be and GTFO.

Still, who cares what the natives say. By that time, they notice a large area covered by what seems like a perpetual shroud of fog that remains in place as if held in place unnatural forces, so they decide to wander into the woods to check it out on their own.

Marcus isn’t keen, but the ever-adorable Carmen tells him that her career is ruined should she return with no story, so he waits as she and Sara wander into the fogs. Oh my, the women see a creepy demonic-looking statue holding a heart in what seems like a foul shrine of some sort.

Well, there’s Carmen’s story alright, although whether these imbeciles can leave the woods with their lives intact to report that story remains to be seen.

Seriously, it’s hard to sympathize with these people, although arguably Marcus is just caught in the middle of this mess because he’s just foolish enough to be led around by his stupidly reckless girlfriend. Unlike that idiot girlfriend in question, he never does things out of deliberate spite or selfishness.

Besides, it’s a good thing that Aaron Ashmore is in this film. I need some eye candy to distract myself from the constant stupidity taking place in this movie!

So yes, in the end, these three gerbils end up unleashing a great evil and get a few of the villagers, including a poor boy, killed as a result, and the villagers let the survivor go free without exacting any retribution for the wasted lives of their fellow villagers.

Then again, the leaders of the villagers aren’t blameless either. Sure, telling curious tourists the truth may not be the best idea, as the truth can seem too far-fetched to be believable, but they could have done something more to keep people from entering the accursed shrine. Maybe station people in the woods to shoot on sight people that are getting too near, perhaps?

All the key people in The Shrine are dumb, and other people die because of their stupidity. If this movie wanted me to root for the great evil to escape and kill all these idiots, then yes, it has done its job well. If not, then it’s a dud on a fundamental level.