The Dread (2007)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Crappy film

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

CAUTION: Plot spoilers present.Esteemed young documentary filmmaker Teri Brewer finds out on her mother's deathbed that she was adopted & that she had a slightly older brother who was placed into a mental asylum following the brutal but unsolved murder of their parents when they were infants. Tracking down the brother (named Alex), Teri & her boyfriend find themselves in danger when a malevolent spirit that had been residing in a video game that Alex had been playing at the time of the deaths comes out & uses Alex's body has a host in order to kill again.The Dread answers the question of whatever happened to female THE EVIL DEAD star Ellen Sandweiss – she's still stuck doing ultra-cheap horror schlock twenty years after her breakthrough role. But unlike The Evil Dead, which was gleefully inventive & darkly funny, The Dread is neither of those things.The main problem I had with the film was the central concept of a malevolent entity residing in a video game – as a dedicated video game player, I find any attempt by the conservative types out there to blame videogames as violent garbage that warps minds as nothing but unfounded rubbish (these same types also decry genre films as violent & bad for children but think nothing about allowing young people access to firearms – this kind of hypocrisy is what gets me really fired up in anger). The story is filled with stupid plot devices that make it look really bad in the eyes of genre fans – security is tight in the soon-to-be-closed asylum but a pair of horny teens manage to sneak in using a long forgotten service door that nobody in the asylum's staff even bothers to remember to use when the crap hits the fan. Some of the characters have been poorly written – Sandweiss' character walks around always holding a pencil (& sure enough gets impaled with all of her pencils in one of the film's more entertaining deaths], while some of the 'crazies' running around are age-old clichés.The film does manage to compensate slightly by having a reasonably gory third act but the climax fails to coherently explain the nature of the entity – the early parts of the film make a vague claim that the creature is living inside the video game that the child was playing, but later on the creature seems to be born inside the host & can jump to a sibling when the host dies. Nothing is explained satisfactorily enough to carry the film along, leaving the film to collapse like a house of cards.

I'm not going to go over the plot much because others have explained what there is of one pretty well. The movie has a lot of dead ends and leaves a lot of things unexplained. These, I feel, were the biggest weaknesses besides the attempt at creating atmosphere with a lack of lighting. Some scenes were spot on in their look, but many were muddy and lacked any detail at all.A mediocre monster, general gore and acting that was a bit below pro-level all give away the movie's low budget roots. I feel all of these are forgivable though when you consider the short amount of time they apparently had to shoot and the small amount of money. While I'm sure there are many filmmakers who could have done more with $150,000 on a video production budget, I can see how it bogs things down.Where budget shouldn't be a factor is the screenplay itself. Most of the time I wasn't quite sure what the hell was going on and by the end I just didn't care. There was something about a video game and a monster and a crazy kid who was now an adult. How the monster worked, what his particular powers were or how he chose his victims wasn't important I guess.So, if you're watching a movie tonight to be scared witless, see Oscar winning performances by actors who had time to connect with their characters, grade-A special F/X or a deep story with rich, full characters, give this one a pass. But, if you like to see monsters dismember people you can fast forward to the fun parts.

The concept seems simple but interesting. A asylum stricken young man Alex seems to be able to transform into a maniacal vicious creature with the ability of becoming non corporeal. He is in the asylum due to becoming non responsive after the brutal murder of his parents, something which his monstrous alter ego could be responsible for. The creature has laid dormant for years until a doctor revives old memories for Alex. The killings become more violent when his biological sister Teri comes for a visit(she was adopted after the parents were murdered).This film starts out okay (i'm talking the first couple of minutes), but quickly suffers a downward spiral. If this were a student film for a school project, it would rate well. But it isn't, so it doesn't. Obviously this film had bugger all budget, but i have seen better films on a shoe string budget. Supporting actors seem to be people giving it there best shot, but most of them don't make the grade. The music score is b grade but acceptably so. Includes some horror clichés, like horny teenagers breaking into the asylum for a cheap scare. Word of advise, if you take your date into an asylum and she strips saying she's always wanted to have sex in one, she is most likely nuts herself so i'd steer clear.The point of view shot coming up behind the main character to try and trick the viewer into thinking the killer is behind them. Usually filmmakers do this shot after the killer is loose, not before. The creature is poor and is quite obviously a guy in a costume. If the mouth moved when it talked, it might redeem it a little. But it didn't, so it doesn't. There is some blood and guts for gore hounds, but not great views of it as it will become obvious that they are animal parts from the butcher shop or corn syrup mixed with red food dye. Best performances go to the lead detective played by Marvin Bernard and asylum ward caretaker Sid Ellis. The asylum manager played by Ellen Sandweiss completely overacts and would have expected more from someone who seems to have the most acting experience in the whole movie (she was in the first Evil Dead). Alex's sister played by Sally Pressman is adequate.

When i saw the cover for this movie i thought OMG this is going to be the scariest movie and goriest movie i have ever seen but Jesus Christ i have never seen a worse movie in my whole life. The acting is fine but the picture quality is like soap opera show quality and the effects are bad too and the storyline is probably the worse. you cant connect with the characters or anything. There is a horrible half sex scene which is pointless and the killer just plays video games there is no plot and you don't like properly get to meet the characters. And the mental hospital is sooo bad i cant stand it. the rooms have other doors in there and electricity boxes too. its like they made a movie for a school contest its so bad. and there are only a few characters as well and some of the patients just simply walk around the hospital and the killer costume design is the worst i have ever seen. its like he is dressed to go to a halloween dance party. the coat thing he wears is like what i would wear to school or something and he is wearing a mask which you could buy at your local supermarket. its not original but its not interesting. and in the final bossfight its like *jab* oh well hes dead and im him now OK then lets show the end credits now which go at 100km an hour.