SHELTER is another routine Hollywood horror flick with a mildly interesting premise that quickly turns to nonsense around the halfway mark. Julianne Moore, delivering exactly the same kind of performance as she did in THE LOST WORLD, HANNIBAL, etc. plays a psychiatrist whose new patient is Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, an actor I think a lot of. It turns out he has multiple personalities, but the more she investigates, the more she comes close to uncovering a horrifying secret linked to the past. The early psychological stuff is fairly interesting and reminiscent of IDENTITY and SPLIT, but the later supernatural stuff takes the biscuit.

In Missouri, the forensic psychiatrist Caroline 'Cara' Jessup (Julianne Moore) rejects the theory of dissociated or multiple personalities and the prisoner of the death row Joseph Kinkirk has no remission from the governor and is sent to lethal injection. Cara is a widow that raises her daughter Sammy (Brooklynn Proulx) with the support of her brother, Stephen Harding (Nathan Corddry),and Catholic that believes in God.

Her father, Dr. Harding (Jeffrey DeMunn),invites Cara to interview the patient David Bernburg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers),who is a sweet man. Out of the blue, David impersonates the aggressive personality of Adam Saber. Cara is intrigued with the mystery and visits David's mother Mrs. Bernburg (Frances Conroy),who tells her that David had passed away a long time ago. Cara invites Mrs. Bernburg to visit Sam in the hospital and they are surprised with the knowledge of the patient about David's private life.

When Sam shifts his personality to Wesley, Cara decides to go further in her investigation and soon she learns that each personality is actually a dead person. Further, she discovers that Adam is actually the Rev. Christian Moore, who lived in Burlington, Alabama, in 1889 and survives eating the souls of those who lost the faith in God, and her family is in danger.

"Shelter" is an engaging horror film with a plot that is the opposite of Fallen (1998),with the entity using the same body and eating the souls of his victims; in Fallen, the entity shifts bodies.

The fifty year-old Julianne Moore is still a very pretty woman and, together with Jonathan Rhys Meyers and the gorgeous girl Brooklynn Proulx, they have great performances. The story is good, but unfortunately, there is excessive use of clichés, and some of them irritates. For example, when Adam breaks in Cara's apartment, neither Stephen not Cara calls the police. Cara asks Stephen to stay in the car without any explanations while she goes with Sammy to visit the witch Granny. When Adam attacks Cara and Sammy, she runs to the woods in the typical cliché. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Identidade Paranormal" ("Paranormal Identity")

Note: On 10 October 2021, I saw this film again.

The film starts out as a great psychological thriller. Cara Harding (Julianne Moore) is a psychologist like her father (Jeffrey DeMunn). She does not believe in multiple personalities. Her dad finds a case in David/Adam (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) that challenges her. She investigates the lives they claim to be, only to discover the impossible.

What was unfortunate was that this film moves from a clever thriller to a less than stellar horror film. I enjoyed the mystery aspect of the film. Cara's attempts to prove Dave/Adam as a hoax, blowing up in her face, time and time again was great. Too bad they couldn't wrap it up. Still it is well worth a view.

Parental Guide: No F-bombs, sex, or nudity.