Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Michael Ledo Louise (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) recently had an operation and needs help around the small farm. Her husband (Peter Christoffersen) hires a house keeper/farm hand Elena (Cosmina Stratan). They have no electricity and Elena adapts to the rustic lifestyle. As the women bond, Louise confides she wants a child, but can't carry one. She has some frozen embryos. Elena accepts the offer and carries the child which after awhile, things change.The DVD cover gives us the baby carriage/ "Rosemary's Baby" theme, but that is never developed in the film. There was some earth/pagan/ natural beliefs, but nothing that manifested itself as horror or supernatural, just people behaving badly. I was bored with the film and conversations and unseen action scenes. They show Cosmina nude while very pregnant. I don't know if this was special effects or the Demi Moore syndrome. I didn't feel I got closure, which appears to be the intent.Guide: F-word. Nudity (Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Cosmina Stratan)

payamcommunication The plot of the movie is simple but it develops fairly astonishingly. The dark atmosphere starts to appear from the beginning of the movie and turns into a not releasing stress in the middle. The suspend builds up all the way close to the ending which is the strength of this movie.The movie has three distinguishing features:The English language has made it possible to be understandable by many audiences and the writer has used the excuse of a foreign maid in the house for English language.I was sick of the ghosts of many recent horror movies which had their mouths open too wide and loud. This movie was a cool breeze away from the failed horrors. The director has done an amazing job to keep up the suspense with almost no special computer effect or crawling long hair lady.The performances of the actors were really satisfying. Except for the two women, the others were not talking that much which was good. The two women (Elena and Louis) were pretty good and amazing at some scenes.All by all, a great movie which I re-watch Although I would like it more if it was longer and it had more development at the ending.

klooney88 I am giving this a 4 because of the ending. I don't give spoilers, but I just didn't like the ending! I think the overall plot had a great potential, and yes, it has a plot where other people said there wasn't. If I would have realized that the closed caption (subtitles) worked for the foreign languages spoke in this movie existed when you chose that, it probably would have earned 5 stars. Some people say this it's slow moving, and yes, it definitely is, however, I feel it set the picture for the setting. The hired maid/housekeeper seems quite normal, and so do the hiring couple. The description of the movie; however, it not accurate, nor is it a thriller or a horror film. My advise - Be ready for a slow moving movie and turn on the CC!

gavin6942 Louise (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Kasper (Peter Christoffersen) want to become parents but Louise is unable to have children. She seals a pact with her Romanian maid, Elena (Cosmina Stratan), to bear Louise's child, but things don't turn out as they planned.What sort of feeling or anticipation do we get when we approach "Shelley"? At first, the name evokes thoughts of Frankenstein's monster, but we quickly see this might not be the best parallel. The plot is much closer to a modern retelling of "Rosemary's Baby". Not that we needed one, but the concept of "natal horror" can always make room for one more.The dynamics of this film are noticeably different from "Rosemary". In that film, the threat was always external. Mia Farrow was terrified of her neighbors, her doctor, and sometimes even her husband as she continually felt boxed in. With "Shelley", it's almost as though things have been reversed. The threat now comes from within (the child itself) and we see events not just from the mother's perspective, but also from the outsiders (the "other" parents).The idea is good, and they must be applauded for casting an actual Romanian in the role of a Romanian maid. This is sort of counter-acted by having Danish people speaking English, however. I presume this was done to boost the chances of international screenings and sales, but it seems inauthentic. This is probably a nitpick, but in this regard I have to be a purist.The bigger question remains: Why does the couple live in the woods without electricity? The answer, of course, is this offers a great setting for a horror film. But it is not adequately explained by the characters. You might think an employee would ask why there's no power, but it never seems to occur to anyone. Are they Luddites? Is this a religious thing? Maybe a little mystery is good, but it seems silly to avoid the issue altogether.Early reviews seem to be very divergent and often mixed. Rotten Tomatoes has the film at an impressive 100%, while IMDb gives the movie only 5.7/10, which is nothing to be proud of. It's too early to rely on either metric, so let's look at more concrete examples. Noel Murray walks that middle line, saying the film "becomes frustratingly vague in the middle" but ends up giving it a passing grade anyway. Neil Genzlinger feels similar, saying the film takes "a minimalist approach that is both intriguing and somewhat unsatisfying… Maybe expecting a horror film to have a point is expecting too much." He clearly wants to like the film but cannot fully commit to it. Alissa Simon is even less impressed, agreeing that the film is "unsatisfying", and also volunteering "underdeveloped" and "ludicrous".For my money, the film is a decent horror film in its own right and will probably be popular when it hits Netflix or wherever it ends up. But it is neither one of the best on the festival circuit nor one of the best horror films of 2016. In the glut of movies coming out year after year, this is still better than average, but the average seems to be on a decline… so it doesn't take too much to get a C when we're grading on a curve."Shelley" debuted in February 2016 in Berlin, and has been making the festival rounds. Most recently it screened at the Fantasia International Film Festival in July. No rest for the wicked, however. Director Ali Abbasi is said to be already at work on "The Holy Spider," a film about Saeed Hanaei, an infamous Iranian serial killer. (Other sources have him directing "Border", which may be the same film under a different title.)