By Mo Moshaty
The Shade (2023) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Following the loss of his father, a grieving twenty-year-old struggles to hold his family together as an unspeakable darkness plagues his older brother.
THE SHADE IS IN CINEMAS ON SEPTEMBER 20TH
Life hasn’t been easy for the Beckman family. After the recent loss of the patriarch, reducing the happy family to the three brothers and their harried mother Renee (Lauren Benanti), middle sibling Ryan (Chris Galust) bears the brunt of the responsibility taking him from carefree college student to Mr. Mom. His younger brother James (Sam Duncan) idolizes him, and their relationship is sweet and endearing and will all the strain, it keeps Ryan on track as a support system. His tight schedule runs between getting James off to school, getting to school himself, making time for his girlfriend Alex (Mariel Molino), and balancing two jobs. Everyone is muddling through, but no one is speaking on how they feel.
Beneath it all Ryan is struggling with grief, with loss, with his newly inherited household stewardship and unspeakable nightmare and tries to quell it all with meds, therapy with Dr. Huston (Michael Boatman), his best friend Nick (Germain Arroyo) and art. It all seems more than he can take until news breaks that his older brother Jason (Dylan McTee), a gifted college athlete, is coming back home under mysterious circumstances. His return brings up old resentments, tensions and buried emotions to a boiling point.
Jason isn’t himself and the more he withdraws the more Ryan must reluctantly lean in, a burden he doesn’t want to bear. Jason’s already fractured psyche is on a knife’s edge when Ryan finds him struggling to discern what is real and what is illusion when an insidious entity begins to stalk them both. Is it a harbinger of sinister things to come or the shadow hanging over a family consumed by darkness, grief and pain?
Chris Galust, Mariel Molino, Dylan McTee, Samuel Duncan, and Michael Boatman, The Shade 2023, Red King
The Shade is a stark look at unresolved grief and trauma, a candid take on how we tend to push things down and away in the quest to regain normalcy, balance and the person we were before our tragedy. Galust is feverish as Ryan, buried under the crushing weight of responsibility leaving no room for him to conquer his own demons.
The Shade blends psychological horror and intimate family drama and marks the feature debut of writer/director Tyler Chipman. Chipman’s talent shines through in the film’s pacing and atmospheric tension, not to mention its quest to dissect generational trauma and mental health, marking a promising start to what is sure to be an exciting career. Red King Cinema’s dedication to producing unique, character-driven content for the independent film market is evident. Together, Chipman and Red King have delivered a truly compelling and original story.
Mo Moshaty is a horror writer, lecturer and producer. As a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist and life long horror fan, Mo has lectured with Prairie View A&M Film & TV Program as a Keynote, BAFSS Horror Studies Sig and The University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. Mo has partnered with horror giant, Shudder Channel, to co-produce the 13 Minutes of Horror Film Festival 2021 and 2022 with Nyx Horror Collective and her literary work “Love the Sinner” was published with Brigid’s Gate Press in July of 2023 and her two volume collection, “Clairviolence: Tales of Tarot and Torment will be published with Tenebrous Press in 2025.
Mo is the creator and Editor-in-Chief of NightTide Magazine and the Founder of Mourning Manor Media.
Mo Moshaty is an acclaimed horror writer, lecturer, and producer whose work combines visceral storytelling with the psychological insight of her Cognitive Behavioral Therapy background. She has lectured internationally, including as a keynote speaker at Nightmares from Monkeypaw: A Jordan Peele Symposium (Prairie View A&M), No Return: A Yellowjackets Symposium (Horror Studies BAFSS Sig), The Whole Damn Swarm: Celebrating 30 Years of Candyman (University of California), and with the Centre for the History of the Gothic (University of Sheffield). Mo has also presented at the BFI, Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, and Final Girls Berlin Film Festival’s Brain Binge on women’s trauma in horror cinema, Cine-Excess on The Creepy Kid Horror Subgenre and Mother/Daughter Trauma in Horror, and Romancing the Gothic on Cosmic Horror’s Havoc on The Body Electric Her short film, 13 Minutes of Horror: Sci-Fi Horror, won the 2022 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Short Film. As a core producer with Nyx Horror Collective, Mo co-created the 13 Minutes of Horror Film Fest and partnered with Shudder in 2021 and 2022, while also establishing a Stowe Story Labs fellowship supporting women creatives over 40+ in horror. A member of the Black Women in Horror Class of 2023 and featured in 160 Black Women in Horror, Mo’s short fiction appears in A Quaint and Curious Volume of Gothic Tales (Brigid’s Gate Press) and 206 Word Stories (Bag O’ Bones Press). Her debut novella, Love the Sinner, was released July 5, 2024, with Clairviolence: Tales of Tarot and Torment released in October 2025. The first of her five-volume non-fiction series, The Annex of the Obscure: The Afterlife, will be released in 2027 from Tenebrous Press. As the Editor-in-Chief of NightTide Magazine and founder of Mourning Manor Media, Mo champions marginalized voices in horror. Under her leadership, NightTide plans to launch a film festival in 2028, furthering her mission to reshape the genre through inclusivity and representation.
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