Shepherd finds the right disguise for its familiar horror-movie checklist

polygon.com:

The new Scottish horror-drama Shepherd suffers from a classic case of Dead Wife Syndrome, a storytelling ailment where a protagonist’s longing for/guilt over their deceased spouse dictates the plot in a reductive, predictable way. The primary symptom of this common disease is a flashback where the dead wife looks over her shoulder at the camera as sunlight frames her hair, which is tousled in an unselfconsciously sexy way. In Shepherd, that standard-issue flashback comes when the wife is walking on a chilly Scottish beach in a tartan skirt and leather jacket, blissfully unaware of the frigid death that awaits her in the sea beyond.

That isn’t the only box on the DWS checklist that Shepherd ticks, either. It also features a conspicuously placed ultrasound photo indicating she was pregnant when she died. And a protagonist experiencing frequent jump-scare nightmares about her funeral. And unspoken secrets about the circumstances of her death.All the symptoms are present: Shepherd’s diagnosis is indisputable.

It’s possible for a film to overcome Dead Wife Syndrome — take The Changeling, the 1980 haunted-house classic that begins with George C. Scott retreating to a secluded mansion to mourn his wife and daughter. But Shepherd isn’t unique enough to beat the condition.A Discovery of Witches’ Tom Hughes stars as Eric Black, the grieving husband, who takes a job as a solitary caretaker for a flock of sheep on a remote island off Scotland’s western coast. When the movie begins, Eric’s wife and unborn child are already dead, so he can’t be driven to murder them. Beyond that,parallels to Stephen King’s The Shining begin right away with the introduction of a milky-eyed sea captain played by Kate Dickie, the British character actor