SHOOK is a new horror movie on Shudder with a lot of “social media influencer” characters to drive the plot. While it has quite a few things going for it, it does also fall into some classic horror movie tropes. A few too many for my liking.

The ending did however work for me in most ways and showed the promise of Jennifer Harrington as a writer and director. Go ahead and check out this one on Shudder. Just know that there will be things that irritate you along the way. Sometimes for deliberate reasons, but not necessarily every time.

Emily Goss is such a scene-stealer… and I love it!

Emily Goss is not the star of Shook, but she is the main co-star and plays a key character. Emily Goss plays the character of Nicole, who is the sister of social media star Mia. Daisye Tutor plays Mia and I am not highlighting Emily Goss to say anything bad about Daisye Tutor.

Personally, the movie worked best when both Emily Goss and Daisye Tutor were on-screen together. The relationship and history as siblings worked pretty damn perfect for me. The next movie from Daisye Tutor will be the horror, sci-fi, thriller Angel of Death which is currently in post-production. We’re definitely on board for that since it covers all the genres we do!

Also, to be fair, I’ve already seen Emily Goss in a few other productions where I also really liked her. Primarily, the horror movie The House on Pine Street (2015) and the drama Snapshots (2018). Obviously, this will impact any new performances I see from her.

However, these previous performances and impressions could just as easily have meant that my expectations were too high and lead to disappointment. Not with Shook though. 

The ending of Shook

The final third of Shook was definitely the favorite part for me. Along the way, there were so many “red herrings” (false clues) and it did get old and tired way too fast. Then again, we do watch a lot of movies, so maybe I’ve just seen one or two too many with this plot recently.

In any case, the ending of Shook was what worked for me. Especially because that was when the good old storytelling element came into play. Just people talking to one another and speaking their mind (in brutal and direct ways). For me, this is often much more interesting than seeing people act in stupid ways.

Or rather, I should say the stereotypical horror movie ways; Running up the stairs when you should be running out the front door. Just to paraphrase Scream’s Sidney Prescott, which was a movie that helped relaunch horror as a blockbuster genre!

In any case, my point is simply that while the overall movie wasn’t that strong, in my opinion, the Shook ending was surprisingly strong. A solid ending is not easy. Just ask Stephen King. He’s one of my absolute favorite authors but also notoriously bad at writing endings.

Watch Shook on Shudder!

Shook is directed by Jennifer Harrington who also wrote the screenplay based on a story by Alesia Glidewell. Previously, Jennifer Harrington directed two short films, a few docu-series episodes, and her debut feature film in 2015. Her writer-director debut feature film Housekeeping was also a thriller, so she clearly has a love for this genre.

For me, Shook worked really well when Emily Goss was on-screen. Especially in scenes with Daisye Tutor. When these two actors, portraying sisters, just talked for a few minutes, I was completely mesmerized for the first time during the runtime of the movie. No small feat when people have been dying and the terror has been everywhere at that point.

The intimacy and realism of simple storytelling just worked so well that I finally sat back and simply listened. Up until that point, I found myself getting irritated by things that didn’t quite fit together properly for me. These things still don’t really work for me, so it’s not that the ending changed that.

But, Shook is definitely worth checking out on Shudder if you’re wanting a horror-thriller that plays with your prejudice and expectations.

SHOOK will premiere and debut exclusively to Shudder on February 18, 2021, in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as via the Shudder offering within the AMC+ bundle where available.