Shadowbuilder

Watched March 21, 2013

1998
Starring: Michael Rooker, Leslie Hope, Andrew Jackson and Kevin Zegers.

This is the second movie with a cool lenticular cover (Blood Moon was the first) and I've learned something about fancy covers. Fancy VHS boxes mean that the movie inside is terrible, if you have to resort to tricks on the outside it means there isn't much on the inside.

The movie stars every one's favorite dad from Mallrats, Michael Rooker, as a gun wielding priest with some serious issues. It begins with some secret ritual; a photo, some hair and a band aid are burned by a secret sect and this unleashes the Shadowbuilder. 

It turns out the band aid belonged to Chris (Kevin Zegers) a kid who is being raised by his aunt and was born with a special goodness inside him. The Shadowbuilder needs to kill him to unleash hell on earth, that's my guess anyway. Father Vassey (Michael Rooker) is trying to find the Shadowbuilder before he takes six souls, kills Chris and brings evil to the earth. The shadowbuilder is mostly just a spooky dark mist that travels around and hates the light. It begins killing people and it takes a little bit of time before Father Vassey can explain what's happening. The town gets taken over by the evil vibes given off by the Shadowbuilder and they start killing each other. The Shadowbuilder is hurt by light so it shuts down the electrical grid. But that doesn't matter to the crazy guy, Evert Covey (Tony Todd) who's been hoarding lights and generators for the last week. Chris gives himself up to save everyone else, because he's a saint. The Shadowbuilder takes him to a church to finish the ritual, but Father Vassey shows up and takes the Shadowbuilder down. 
  
It started off very confusing, and I have to say that Michael Rooker is a great character actor but you really don't want him to be the main character you have to root for. There is a funny scene where an old man, who has just murdered his wife because of the Shadowbuilder's bad vibes, chops down a telephone pole only to have the pole fall and kill him. Nothing really stood out as particularly fun or scary, skip this one.