Film Review: Secrets Kept Silenced in ‘The Shade’

Throughout our childhoods, we are often told to beware the unknowns lurking in shadows. To be fearful of the obscurities shapeshifting in the dark. To see shade as an ambiguous veil cloaking the most horrific parts of our world better left unknown. To not ask questions. Many of us grow up nurturing these blind beliefs – the idea that terror lurks at night. But do we really know why or how these tales have manifested? Who bears the ultimate burden to shine a light?

  Tyler Chipman’s supernatural horror film, The Shade (2023) explores some of the most feared facets of ourselves as he chronicles one family’s descent into grief and chaos following the loss of their father and husband. Admit the chaos, we watch as high school student, Ryan Beckman (Chris Galust) attempts to fill the paternal gap within his family by stepping into a fatherly role to parent his younger bother, Jamie (Sam Duncan). We witness eldest brother, Jason (Dylan McTee) at the height of mental unrest after returning home from college following a year of tense absence. We see their mother, Renee (Laura Benanti) have little time to truly absorb the deterioration of her family as she juggles her own challenges.

  On the surface, the dynamics of loss unfolding within the Beckman family are not unlike what anyone would expect from an ordinary family in mourning; still, this accepted sense of commonplace commotion is exactly where the horror of this tale takes root.

  Writer and Director, Tyler Chipman takes an unabashed, white-knuckled approach to delving into the shadows of social mythology, exposing the hereditary hell embodying societal messaging around mental health, personal fortitude, and resilience. Reminiscent of social theory including ‘person-in-environment’ frameworks, The Shade  elucidates how generations of people continue to act as agents of their environments, following social order and tempting some hieratic script of prescribed fate.

In the film we see Jason succumb to a fate similar to the fate of his father. We see Ryan veer in a parallel direction, mirroring the distance and despondency he experienced from Jason before his foreseen death. We also see Jamie, baited and running from the same plague, prefacing another generational manifestation of the facts and mistruths of mental health and self-determination.

  Chipman craftily uses the sci-fi image of a gag-worthy demon, a repugnant posterchild of pain, to signify all of our own fears and faults that continue to surface when we least expect them and linger longer than we wish to admit. These foul entities continue to spread misconceptions of truth and wreak havoc as they shape how we see ourselves and define the level of autonomy we have over our lives.

  The Shade is not just horrific for entertainment, or dark for the sake of shock. The film is weighted and baited in how it begs the audience to ask themselves several uncomfortable questions…

  Who really are we? How much control do we truly have over ourselves and the trajectory of our lives while living in the silhouette of the larger, more profound social narrative? Do the stories people tell determine what we become? Do the stories we passively accept as truth about ourselves, about our destinies, serve as proof to keep the noisy naysayers whispering?  

  When we talk about mental health, trauma, and the stigma of innate illness, are we all fighting the same, shadowy entity that coaxes us to give in and accept our prescribed fate as truth by design? Is this repetitious tale also ours to tell?

  Chipman reminds viewers that passive permission in the recreating and retelling of uncontested stories is what keeps individuals, families, and entire continents of people entangled in routine ways of thinking and behaving.

  But what if we refuse to accept our existence as a collection of passed-down beliefs? What if we take back the power and control that has been afforded to us and grant ourselves permission to define our own values and our own worth? What if we embrace Chipman’s repeated symbolism of fiery light as smoke signal reminders of our ability to transform our bodies, minds, and spirits beyond past and present conceptualizations? To take a stand; to make our future ours?

  The fortunate thing about stories is that they are only as true as you accept them to be. How you counteract dominant discourse with what is known and true to you is what ultimately determines your fate.

Taken together, The Shade offers an astute biopsychosocial take on the concept of mental health and the journey toward personal fortitude through a dense thicket of public discourse that exists to barricade, ostracize, isolate, and displace each of us. Chipman valiantly takes the microaggressive social narrative by its thorny boughs and challenges the veracity of a world where everyone believes the same pigeonholed prognoses and obeys inherited assumptions as law.

Ask yourself: if we stop repeating the same story, what are we truly at risk of losing? What if we have a voice and make space for a renewed, seldom-told ending?

Shari Fitzgerald is a published author and registered social worker from Newfoundland, Canada. When she is not working as a credentialed program evaluator to advance policy reform for vulnerable children, seniors and families in her community, she immerses herself in her creative literary safe space. Shari’s research and written contributions appear in various national and international scholarly journals focusing on health, professional education, and public welfare. Shari is a member of WritersNL and the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), and has published the first edition of her poetry anthology, The Axis of Unseen Company.