In 3 Tagen bist du tot

I was more than just a bit skeptical when it came to watching "In 3 Tagen bist du tot". The plot seemed pretty stupid and I wasn't convinced that the makers would be able to pull off something like that in a typical Austrian village setting. I was right about the first thing, but director Andreas Prochaska really did a nice job translating the essence of movies like "I Know What You Did Last Summer" into the Austrian landscape.

Sure, "In 3 Tagen bist du tot" suffers from the usual slasher weaknesses, but for once this is actually a good thing. It means that this movie is on one level with the international competition. The acting may not be Oscar material, but it could have been way more awful. What hurt the movie more is that it's pretty slow at times and although there are one or two scenes that will make you jump, there are too few of those shocking or scary moments. On the plus side, Prochaska makes great usage of that small town creepiness by setting some moody scenes on a lake or in an old, creaking house. There's also quite a bit of gore, which is never a bad thing in a slasher movie.

The movie's one big flaw, however, is the derivative plot. There is absolutely nothing new here story-wise. Imagine "Friday The 13th" with just a few "The Ring"-elements and you got "In 3 Tagen bist du tot". It's as if the producers focused more on making their version of the movies that attracted so many ticket buyers in the late 80's rather than actually trying to come up with something original. They were impressively successful in that aspect, but the next step should be to bring forward new ideas. Apparently, Austria is able to make good horror movies. Now it's time to go for a GREAT one. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

As mentioned before this movie probably is the first one of its kind to be made in Austria by Austrians artists only. Austria's good times in the movie industry have long been gone and modern Austrian filmmakers concentrate mainly on producing artistic stuff that relies heavily on the actors (mostly due to funding problems). So this film is quite different from what is coming from Austria nowadays but it's not so different from what is coming from Hollywood. That's a new approach and that's OK. In my opinion the movie is better than the average Scary Movie flick. The story is quite straightforward, the ending is adept though not too surprising. The gory scenes come at the times you expect them to come. Sometimes you know what is going to happen before but that's what we call suspense and if it was good enough for Hitchcock it's good enough for everyone. And it works here too! The movie doesn't stay on a high level of tension all the time. It speeds up then slows down then speeds up again several times. Nice flow. The director does a really good job and I especially appreciated the cinematography. Some really nice pictures, good camera positioning. The cutting was good too and makes the movie look more expensive and professional than it was.

The young actors are mostly unknown but mostly talented and add to the overall positive impression the film made on me.

I enjoyed watching the film although it's not a perfect piece of work (therefore my score of 7/10) but judge for yourself. Let's hope there will be more to see from the people who made this movie. I think there is still a lot of potential to explore.

"In Drei Tagen Bist Du Tot" (2006) is an excellent slasher movie from Austria, a land that has, since the silent time, proved to deliver constantly world-class movies like no other German speaking land did. To whoever does not believe that, I highly recommend the "Hoanzl" collection with several hundreds of region-free available DVDs amongst which you will even find early Mihaly Kertesz = Michael Curtiz movies amongst other classics about which the non-European audience can just dream.

"In Drei Tagen Bist Du Tot" is remarkable in many respects: First, it is the first Austrian slasher movie. Second, practically all actors have never acted before. Third, the budged was 2 millions of Euros for which in Hollywood one would not even take a camera out of its closet. Third, the whole movie is spoken in Salzkammer dialect and, as usual in Europe, filmed In Loco. (On the contrary, in Hollywood movies it is usual nowadays that the beginning is filmed in Utah, the main part in Rumania, and the end in Canada.) In 2007, "In Drei Tagen Bist Du Tot" got amazingly the Austrian film price, the now so-called "Austrian Ticket" which was given before, in 1996, to Vilsmaier's "Schlafes Bruder". I also welcome this movie because Horror has a very small tradition in European film-making. While the Swiss film De Facto died with Kurt Früh in 1979 and the German film with Fassbinder in 1982, our whole hope stays with Austria.

I watched this movie, do you know what you did? ;o) Of course the summary line is also a link, that this movie is obviously linked to American teen horror movies of the recent past and tried to copy them as good as it could.

So if you like this kind of movies, you might be more excited than I was. I mean I liked "I know what you did last summer", but it had also a lot to do with Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar and the others. They weren't excellent, but good enough. And although the actors hold their own here (for a horror movie that is), something is missing. It never really get's really scary, that might be it ... Not the worst movie ever then (not close to that), but still not something you have to watch (unless you're a fan, as I said earlier)

Ah, Austria ... Unquestionably one of the most beautiful countries in the world and the cinematic home of the famous "Sissi"-movies, millions of vintage Tiroler sex comedies and probably a handful of thankfully obscure yodel musicals as well. And thanks to director Andreas Prochaska, Austria now also has its very own teen-slasher-movie! Prochaska clearly was fed up with the enchanting postcard-image reputation of his home country and uses the exact same picturesque lakes and flowery decorated mountain hotels as the hunting territory of a demented serial killer. "Dead in Three Days" blends together the prior-warning idea of "The Ring" with the more traditional and old-fashioned maniacal tendencies of "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and the wholesome results in an overall competent, albeit unmemorable new horror film. On their long-awaited day of university graduation, five close friends all receive the same text message on their mobile phones. In three days you'll be dead, which naturally sounds like a lame college prank. Of course, it isn't a joke and the teenagers quickly find themselves pursued by a killer who has an old score to settle with the clique. "Dead in Three Days" is too slow-paced to really compete with the vintage slashers of the 80's and the script spends too much time on the detailed character drawings. The plot as well as the killer's outfit is too derivative of many existing slashers – especially the aforementioned IKWYDLS – and there nearly isn't enough tension and/or spectacle. The gore-factor and killing scenes are unmemorable, with the exception of one awesomely grim decapitation sequence! "Dead in Three Days" is okay entertainment for avid slasher-fans to pass the time but, of course, if it wouldn't be for the fact that Austria has few or even no history in the genre of horror, this mundane teenkill-film would barely even make it to DVD.