Shepherd

British horror flick is easy to respect and admire, but hard to outright like.

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“Shepherd” (available in select theaters beginning Friday, May 6 and on VOD beginning Tuesday, May 10) is a horror movie I respected and/or admired a helluva lot more than I liked.

English actor Tom Hughes (a fixture on one of my wife’s favorite shows “A Discovery of Witches”) stars as Eric Black, a recent widower whose pregnant wife Rachel (Gaia Weiss, “Vikings”) died in a tragic accident.

Eric attempts to seek solace from his mother Glenys (Greta Scacchi, an accomplished actress I obnoxiously referred to as Greta Skanky as a youngster because, well, I was a dumb kid). Glenys gruffly rebuffs the gesture as she blames Eric’s father’s death on him choosing Rachel over them and goes so far as to call the departed a harlot and a whore.

Dejected, Eric throws his wedding ring into a lake and contemplates suicide. Soon thereafter he spots a newspaper advertisement for a job working as a shepherd on a remote Scottish island. Perhaps purpose amid isolation is just what the doctor ordered? Eric and his Border Collie Baxter (Shuggie, a good canine actor) are ferried to the island by Fisher (Kate Dickey, whom you might remember getting kicked through a Moon Door on “Game of Thrones” or as the bitchy mom in “The Witch”). Upon arrival stuff starts getting strange and Eric’s fear of heights is exacerbated by the ramshackle stairs leading to his bedroom in the crummy cottage quartering him.