Dead End

Rating:
Summary: First rate thriller
Review: "Dead End" offers an absorbing, terrifying and genuinely creepy tale involving a whole family on a trip that takes a detour at Christmastime. The movie explodes day to day certainties and exposes "Christmas Cheer" as superficial fluff. Facing the terror of the unknown, each family member exposes his most intimate secret. Although reminiscent of the Twilight Zone, "Dead Zone" has the advantage of first rate acting and plotting.

Rating:
Summary: Now I know the meaning of fear.
Review: An awesome film about a family driving to their Christmas Eve destination and encounter true terror. Mind you, the family isn't the smartest in the world: constantly getting out of the car in danger, picking up a hitchhiker. They pick up a strange young woman with a "baby" and then the nightmare begins. Members disappear, show up in the back window of a eerie, slow black car, and are found mutiliated on the road. All reactions of the characters are completely real: some go into severe shock, other's lose their minds, suicide attempts, drinking, crying, and the family's skeletons in the closet. Here, we see real human responses to hopelessness on a long road to nowhere. Honestly scary, original, and addicting. No more clues from me; rent this for a quiet evening...with the door closed.


Rating:
Summary: Dead End
Review: I think I have seen every horror and thriller movie out there and I have to say it was great for once to find one that was really worth watching. Highly Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A DARKLY TWISTED BLACK COMEDY
Review: If you had excpected to see Rod Serling pop out at some point during this movie, you're not the only one. Dead End plays a somewhat of an extended episode of Twilight Zone or Night Gallery. This is on the surface a horror film but at its core a clever black comedy aimed at dysfunctional families.

The Harrington family is on their way to a Christmas eve gathering at a relative's home. The father, Frank, (Ray Wise) decides to take a short cut down a lonely, deserted forest road much to the annoyance of his prim and proper wife Laura (Lin Shaye). In the back is pot-smoking, smart-ass son Richard (Mick Cain) Daughter Marion (Alexandra Holden) and her boyfriend Brad (Billy Asher).

Soon they see a woman in white wandering the road carrying a baby. They stop to pick her up and see if they can help. she disappears when they stop at small roadside shack along with boyfriend Brad. Brad is then seen screaming in the back of a slow moving, 50's era black car. Soon afterward Brad's body is found mutilated in the road.

Panic ensues in the Harrington family as they try to find help but they pass no other cars and reach no towns along the seemingly endless road. At every point they stop, someone else disappers only to be seen in the black car and then dead afterwards. Panic sets as the stress brings out buried secrets in a darkly humorous way from the various family members. Marion reveals she's pregnant, Richard that he smokes pot, and wife laura that she had an affair and Richard is not her husband's son. Things escalate as mom Laura descends into madness and begins to see people along the road causing her to leap from the speeding car.

Dead End is a nice little direct-to-video film. Certainly a cut above others of its ilk. Director jean-Baptiste Andrea does a deft job at slowly building the tension between family members and having all of their dark secrets revealed on what's supposed to be a happy night of celebration. The comedic elements are subtle but quite funny such as when Marion reveals she's pregnant to her stunned parents, son Richard blurts out of the blue, "I smoke pot!"

There's a lot of nice little touchs like that in this movie. This was Andrea's first film and I think we will be hearing more from him in the future.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty good, but a little too familiar
Review: Maybe I've seen too many horror movies, read too many novels, watched too many horror/supernaturally themed TV shows, but I figured out the film's big "twist" after the first person was killed. The twist, and thusly the entire story itself, has been done before; in a Twilight Zone episode and a cult horror movie classic to cite a couple previous tellings of the story (I won't name the movie because if you've seen that one or know of its ending it'll ruin this one. I will say it was released in 1962, happy hunting). That diminished my enjoyment of the film, but for anyone who doesn't see it coming, it's probably a film worthy of four stars.

Premise is pretty simple. Ray Wise plays the father who is driving his family on a trip to grandma's for the holidays. He takes shortcut that leads them down a seemingly endless road where a ghostly woman starts hunting the family down, and victims are taken away against their will in back of a black hearse.

Again, if you're unfamiliar with the material this will seem mysterious and creepy. The execution is pretty effective, and some scenes are genuinely chilling. I especially thought the hearse rolling down the street with someone peering out of the back window begging to be let out was a bit unnerving. That said, since I also knew exactly what was happening, it wasn't as mysterious or scary to me as it could have been. When the twist is revealed I was disappointed to find that I was right, and even more disappointed by the hamfisted attempts to make every little piece of the mystery gel. A little ambiguity isn't bad, and would have been more appropriate than the forced efforts at the end that bely the great execution that comes before it.

Rating:
Summary: The road is long to the Dead End.
Review: This is not the Samuel Goldwyn film "Dead End" (1937) that starred Humphrey Bogart and the Dead End Kids the we came to like. How dare they steal the title of that film.
This 2003 film is a thriller. Produced by James Huth and Gabriella Stollenwerck and released by Captain Movies/Sagittaire Films.
Frank (Ray Wise), his wife Laura (Lin Shaye) and his family of two, Rick (Mick Cain) and Marion (Alexandra Holden) with Marion's boyfirend, Brad (Billy Asher), are traveling to Grandma's house for Christmas. It is now Christmas Eve and it is very dark out there driving on the road. It's a trip they take every year, but this year will be different. Traditionally, they travel on the Interstate, but Frank has decided to take a backroad as a shortcut. he won't let anyone else drive and he is getting very sleepy. He nods off and a car is coming right towards them. Marion screams and the father wakes up just in time. No one is injured and the car is all right, but the family has no idea where they are now. The film takes another weird turn when Frank sees a woman in white by the road. he stops to pick her up. She has a laceration on her forehead and she is in shock. marion with an attitude decides to get out of the car and walk the rest of the way. The woman in white enters the car while she is in shock.
This is just the first 10 minutes of the film. This film has many twists and turns like the road itself.
This film is very engrossing. It will hold your attention.
Ray Wise you may remember from the ABC series, "Twin Peaks".
Lin Shaye has been in many horror films including A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Amityville: A New Generation (1993).
Mick Cain is currently on the CBS serial, Bold and the Beautiful.
Alexandra Holden was a guest on the NBC series, "Friends" and on the "Ally McBeal" tv series.



Rating:
Summary: Graduates of the Roman Polanski School
Review: This is the first movie that has managed to successfully creep me out in quite a while. The visuals are done in classic Roman Polanski fashion, and some of them stayed with me long into the night. It's too bad that a movie like this had to be lost on the Blockbuster video shelves, when it probably could have done well with a theatrical release. Shame on Lion's Gate for burying this one and making such a fuss over House of 1000 Corpses instead.

Ray Wise has been one of my favorites since Twin Peaks, and he's up to his old tricks in this movie. I would hate to have that guy as my father. The story is fairly predictable, but manages to give the audience enough creepy images and scares along the way to make it worth a watch.

Dead End is not a perfect horror movie, there are moments where the protagonists make some questionable decisions, but it's better than most. Four stars for these French first timers.


Rating:
Summary: DEAD END-good but....
Review: This movie reminded me of a combination of several movies. First there is a lot of Blair Witch Project in it-instead of walking in the woods, they are driving...endlessly in circles, with wierd things happening along the way. Most of the movie evolves around this theme just as Blair Witch did--but Blair Witch was a lot creepier.

Add a touch of The Others-well I'll be giving away some plot but if you seen The Others you will see what I mean.

But I am not saying it is a bad movie. In fact, it held my attention but not what I call a great movie either. It's an even "okay" movie but elements of the film are very familiar from other movies I've seen. So the originality of it is not that great.

It's an okay rent, but it is something I would not purchase for a lot of money to get, and I would not be in a rush to get it either.

Rating:
Summary: still shivering
Review: This movie terrified me in a way which no other horror movie has been able to terrify me since I was a kid. These days, it's difficult to find truly horrifying horror movies, but this one had me hiding behind a pillow at points throughout it. It's offbeat and different from the typical horror film, containing not just blood, gore, and death, but a fair amount of psychological horror too, the scariest kind. Watching the slow but steady deterioration of a family who had nothing but each other to find solace in on a never ending road full of inexplicable forces of evil was the creepiest part. This movie gave me chills again and again, even after the credits had ended.

Rating:
Summary: Tuaut and suspenseful... if not slightly predictable
Review: This type of movie has been done various times and to various levels of quality. I would have to say that this film did its intended job by keeping me captivated from the opening to the end. Even before the "horror" starts, you can sense that there is tension in the car between the family. It would appear that the road trip to grandmas house offers a bit of discomfort for some of them; for others it is the opprotunity to annoy the "fun" out of everyone else. It is while everyone except Daddy-O (a perfectly cast Ray Wise) is asleep that he decides to take a shotcut that they have never taken in the twenty years they've taken the trip. After almost having an accident, the terror begins. As they drive they run into a woman carrying her baby and she seems to be in shock. They insist on calling 9-1-1 because she looks badly injured and as suspected, cell phone reception is a no-no, so they go to a cabin they passed. That is when the movie gets weird and scary. Things suddenly are not as they seemed and one by one, the unsuspecting family members meet some rather brutal deaths. My one problem with this movie is it revealed itself way to quickly. At a certain plot point, a simple act between family members indicates the ending which is not as shocking as it could have been. Yet... the end did have some clever bits that shed some light on the events through the story which boils down to the longest road trip from hell. The acting is great accross the board and the suspense, well edge of your seat about covers that...