Shepherd

 A young man (Russell Owen), recently bereaved and under obvious distress, decides to accept a shepherd job in a barren isle off the cost of Scotland (The Isle of Mull, posing as a much smaller island). A laconic captain (the always welcome Kate Dickie) takes him and his dog Baxter  (Shuggie) there, uttering all sorts of ominous pronouncements on the way ("Something's haunting you, Mr. Black. I can see it. I hope you get the chance to confront it.")

 Egads.

 For a while, as Eric settles into the derelict cottage the job comes with, and it looks like the movie might slow down and breathe a little. It doesn't last long.
 Soon the poor guy is suffering nested nightmares, being followed around by a woman in black, or dealing with low-level haunted house shit. When it's not that, hints of his dark, troubled past bubble up or Captain Fisher phones up with some more vague accusations. There's also a mystery, of sorts (it never goes anywhere) with a bunch of journals an artistic soul left behind; you know, the type of person who'd draw some pretty ravens by a warning about a witch; "She's here!"
 Even if it's at a glacial pace, there's always something going on in this movie. It's a constant, slow-motion barrage of very tame weirdness and psychological distress.

 Shepherd's a (mostly) gorgeously mounted gothic tale that struggles with the tale part. It's a tone exercise that, grasping for a story, settles on cobbling together hoary clichés, shopworn imagery, and nothing much beside. Maybe if we smother it in dour solemnity no one will notice.

 Technically, at least, it excels. Writer/director Russell Owen has a real eye for composition and keeps things lively, always with an eye towards constantly driving the screws in. And while it's always a bit too obvious in its intent, a little crass, the film gets by on looks: Cinematographer Richard Stoddard makes the unusual choice to film with a lot of curved lenses, even in interior shots, and lavishes a lot of attention on the gorgeous windswept hillsides and moors. Along with a sometimes overbearing score by Callum Donaldson, the visuals and style-over-everything mindset ensure that the atmosphere goes a long way to salvage a lousy script.

 The acting is great as well; Owen sells his character's funk convincingly. Dickie, meanwhile, make a huge impression with a tiny part as a sort of one-woman Greek chorus/pack of furies; This character, complete with her awesome wardrobe (Costume design by Gigi Siegel) belongs in a much more fun movie than this one.

 

 Even the ace visuals stumble towards the end, as escalation requires more than the meagre budget allows; Few movies manage to do convincing CGI fire, and Shepherd is not one of them. The climactic scene where we finally see the root of Eric's trauma fares much worse - a very funny instance of supposedly horrifying cartoon physics. Good thing I wasn't invested in the plot, huh?

 Maybe that's too mean. There's a lot to like here, it's just that it's in service of a completely uninspired, vacuous core. I do hope everyone involved gets more chances, I'd love to see what these people would do with a story worth telling.