Dood eind

If there's one thing "Dood Eind" can teach us, it is that even the Dutch know about all the dreadful clichés of the horror genre and that it took until now, late 2006, before they processed them all into one lame movie. I'm pretty sure that, if this movie was made in any other country, it never would have seen the light of day, but since it's the Netherlands and since this nation is desperately craving its very own horror tradition, "Dood Eind" got exaggeratedly promoted in the specialized press and on websites. The story revolves on themes that you've seen a thousand times before already and largely blends the plots of the overrated films "Blair Witch Project" and "Ju-On: The Grudge". The writers, however, claim that their main inspiration was Sam Raimi's "The Evil Dead", but I spotted very few similarities between that classic and this pretentious piece of junk, apart from the ominous woods and the book of the dead. Seven friends that haven't seen each other since their childhood (and actually can't stand each other anymore...) come together for a reunion trip in the Scottish countryside. On the first night around the campfire, the group is attacked by ravenous dogs and they're forced to take refugee in an abandoned house. Minor mistake, as it soon turns out that the house is haunted by the restless spirit of a woman whose baby got killed over a hundred years ago on suspicion of witchery. A haunted house? Dwelling ghosts?? Really? That's so original... NOT! Naturally it doesn't take long before all the clichés start following each other at fast pace. Spontaneously slamming doors, eerie noises coming from the attic and the occasional sudden appearance of a pale-faced ghost lady, they're all there. Stereotypes are well-presented as well, as the clique of seven contains a coward, a bitch, a macho, etc.. Strange fiery mucus that grows on the walls kills most of the Dutch trespassers, and the remaining survivors have to try and understand the house's history if they ever want to get out alive. Technically speaking, the film is okay. The budget was extremely low, but it was nevertheless enough to come up with a handful of decent visual effects and adequate filming locations. Even the acting performances are acceptable, although some of the players are difficult to understand even if you speak the same language. Nope, the problem with "Dood Eind" is purely the substance. There's never any tension since you can feel the 'twists' and 'shocks' coming well in advance and especially the climax is really pathetic. There's still hope for the Dutch horror film (check out "Sl8N8"), but "Dood Eind" is a production better left ignored.

Nice try to be the second successful Dutch horror movie. After the Lift from Dick Maas released in 1983, no Dutch horror movie was released successfully. The film is a mix from Blair Witch, Cube, The Ring, Evil Dead and the Blob and is not very original. The writer from Doodeind is a big fan from Evil Dead and brings "the book of dead" an homage. The movie brings nothing new, but looks good and has a few scary moments. I was very surprised of the acting work from a few leading actors in a positive way. Only Victoria Koblenko's acting is very bad. It is even hard to call it acting, it is so bad and I had the idea that she used an autocue in every scene. In the beginning her miscasting is quite funny but start to get irritating after a few minutes and then you wish she will die the cruelest of all. The movie is funny to watch for the people in Holland, because of the Dutch language. For the rest of the world, Doodeind is nothing special.

So, as a long-time horror fan i just had to watch this home-ground made movie of course. After reading the comments here, i postponed it for a while. But now i've seen it, it is way better as my fellow reviewers suggest.

Is it a great script, preformed by marvelous actors? no, certainly not. But name me 3 horror-movies that do.

This is a very descent movie. The script is not bad at all. Maybe it is a bit slow at some points, as other reviewers point out, but conversations are better then usual in horrors. The big story-line isn't revolutionary, but it's 'unique' enough not be boring. The special fx aren't overwhelming, but they are convincing. Guess you cannot get any better within the budget.

The acting is actually quite nice. Some of these actors are dutch soap actors (Im not into that), but there was very little overacting. With the big emotions (fear, grief, anger) in this story, it would be easy to screw up, but they didn't.

The biggest problem i had was the guy who is attacked first, and dragged around by his friends. His state of 'dying/illness' varies a bit too much. Combined with the bad grime/makeup job they did on him, he appears more like a zombie, not like a badly injured guy. Well, i'm nitpicking here.

Overall, both me and my girlfriend where pleasantly surprised. It's oké.

If you had the time to make it to the end of this review, just watch the darn thing. It's not a movie to remember for years, but it will give you a nice evening. Especially if you're dutch and like horrors, you should not skip this one.

Picked this DVD up on a five-hour wait in Schiphol and watched it that night in a hotel room. I was hoping that it would have some of that black-humour quality that 'De Lift' has, but this movie really doesn't have much to recommend it at all. The pacing is off, the story is lacking and by an hour into the movie, the urge to turn it off and check my email instead was slowly becoming overwhelming. Still, I watched the rest of it, and it's just as bad as other reviews suggest that it is. As a rule, you stop caring about the characters long before you find out what happens to them. So disappointing... but next time I pass through Schiphol I'll still be checking the Dutch DVD section in the airport shops...

I went to the cinema without having any good hope for the movie whatsoever, the TMF campaign and all gave a cheap and baldy hyped image of the whole movie, so my view on it wasn't that positive. Overlooking some of the cliché moments and effects, this turned out to be a rather unfair judgment.

I was surprised by the overall quality of the movie, the attention to detail and the atmosphere created in some of the scenes. We all know survival horrors aren't always that interesting nor scary, this movie however gave it a twist. For a change, it had almost had me poop my pants certain moments. And I wasn't the only one, I remember the audience laughing and reacting overwhelmed by moments like, lets say the mirror scene. Which in my opinion was very well though out. The way Everon Jackson Hooi showed fear made me sit on top of my chair in that scene, not actually wanting to see what it was that made him so scared.

Overall, for a first time dutch movie in this genre I thought it worked out great. A must see for dutchies, and maybe even people outside of Holland. I'd say, subtitle it and bring out an international version and see what the world thinks.