Dead End (2006)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

As Good As It Gets

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

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.

Dutch film industry isn't big...good actors are hard to find. Good scriptwriters apparently are even harder to find. Every single cliché that has been used in dozens of horror films you be sure to find is this one too !!! A book is found with spells and so...hey...haven't I seen this before...? Well...I won't "spoil" any more "viewing-pleasures". Better yet Don't watch it. It's a complete waste of time. Why give it 2 stars you ask? Mmmm...another Dutch production...SL8N8 (Butchers Night) ...is even worse. So that's my 1 star movie. If you haven't watched either: BE WARNED...and DON'T watch !!! It's not an A lister, not even a B lister. Nope...I would rather say it's a N lister, N like in NO !!!

This film is absolutely terrible. Reasons will be mentioned. By the way. I'm not dissing people here. I've read about the director. He seems to be a very nice and hardworking guy. But I'm just gonna be honest here. The film IS bad: SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1) The film starts all of the sudden (which is good sometimes) and then becomes slow. Veeerrryyyyy sloooowwww. 2) I can't possibly tell how bad the dialogue is. Every line is stolen from an English or US film and directly translated. 3) No character development at all. They're just there. That goes for the Dutch cast as well as for the 'witch' and her child. 4) The guy that gets wounded in the beginning becomes pale due to lack of blood. He becomes weaker and paler, but instead of fainting or dying, he gets his color and strength back. 5) The so-called hero (Chris) is probably meant to look tough but all he does is gasping, screaming and crying. 6) Same cry-baby (Chris) starts shooting his shotgun at fire (?!?!?!), but when standing by a locked door and a chain he doesn't shoot. 7) Why and how the witch mother took possession of the blonde girl can only be guessed. 8) Everything was there for a good scare effect. But it was only used once or twice. 9) A bad build-up. In the beginning there was some good tension and it was not totally slow. Than suddenly it became slowER. In the 2nd half all the actors did was walking, sitting, waiting, crying and dying. I could go on forever. What pains me the most is that you actually see the actors try. They're not that bad, but you can see that the script sucked big time. Technically it's OK. Good effects and lighting. The sound quality is fine, but the choice of music never made sense. But how the director/producer managed to even THINK that the script and dialogue were OK, is the biggest mystery. The horror became a drama. End of a story which never actually was a story............... _______________________ CRAPMASTER BOLL SUXX!!!

Oh boy, what to say about this.Holland doesn't have a horror culture, and if this movie is any indication, it probably never will have one.Let me get the good stuff out of the way: technically, the movie is adequate, with some good cinematography, decent music and (for Dutch standards) pretty decent effects.But then we have to start judging the movie on its actual content and what impression that leaves. Which left me wholly underwhelmed (and i'm being kind). To summarize all the aspects: the acting ranges from decent to downright laughable (depending on the actors and on the emotion they were intended to express); the story (what little of it there is) ends up amounting to absolutely nothing the least bit interesting; the movie CRAWLED along, with most of it spent making characters sneak through dark corridors and rooms with flashlights where most of the times nothing ends up happening; the movie is repetitive in the extreme (scene: people rest in room - smoldering fire invades wood around them - people try to escape room - repeat ad nauseum); whenever something happens it is the usual annoying shocks of the "BOO" type with quick cut editing; we have characters that make NO impression whatsoever, and included a main protagonist who spent most of his time crying or making hilarious faces (supposedly representing a mix of shock , rage or crying, or all at the same time).Put it this way, whatever tension the makers managed to build up initially went down the toilet when this viewer started quickly realizing that NOTHING scary (or gory) was going to happen. You can only have people creeping down corridors with flashlights for so long without payoff before i stop giving a hoot and thinking about turning the DVD off (which i didn't because i wanted to see if it improved).I have to compliment the guys making the film for the technical proficiency and meaning well, but it seems as if they really thought that throwing ingredients from "Blair Witch Project", "Silent Hill" and "House on Haunted Hill (remake)" into a pot and cooking it, automatically meant the result would be a great tasting horror soup. This soup fell completely flat and tasted like nothing.Sorry guys. You undoubtedly love horror, but loving it is different from being able to make it and doing a good job.On a side note: some Dutch reviewers (see "reviews" on left side of IMDb page) have given the movie props for being a successful attempt. These people are obviously a bit too chauvinistic about Dutch "product" and need to regain their objectivity. You're not going to do horror's future in Holland any good by praising this movie if it really sucks. And those that think it really was good, ah well...

I saw this film on the first day it was released. I was glad it finally came, it would have been earlier. I had bad expectations, but as a Dutch horror fan and maker, I hoped it wouldn't be that bad.But no matter how low my expectations were, the film was worse. It starts with the screenplay. Barely a story (the first half hour is mainly slowly walking through hallways with flashlights), uninteresting characters (you don't care if they live or die), and awful dialog. For no reason this story takes place in Scotland. Which leads to a Dutch actress talking half Englisch/ half what's-supposed-to-be Scottisch. Very funny, not intended to be.Every horror scene is just one familiar from other American/Japanese films, badly imitated. The only things that are okay for Dutch standards are the score and the visual effects (not all of them). But this does not a good movie make!I find it common sense that the makers had to search far and wide for investors, since this is obviously a piece of crap. And then comes the news that Tarantino's company is interested in making a remake. I'm sorry, but we can do much much better than this, when it comes to Dutch horror. Do NOT let this be the representative film for Dutch horror in the new millennium.