Before Dawn

It's amazing how many zombie films there are out there . If nothing else it keeps The Horror Channel in the UK constantly running . I'm trying to remember a time when post apocalypse scenarios didn't feature zombies . When I was a teenager nuclear annihilation seemed the major plot device to set up the end of the world . As soon as Gorby pulled down The Iron Curtain 20 billion zombies staggered out to take over the world

As you can guess the point I'm making is that there's an element of seen it all before and that's probably why Boyle's 28DL was such a big hit - he brought something new to the table by having the living dead outsprint Usain Bolt . One can understand the point BEFORE DAWN is trying for . It's a bit like Ben Wheatley's KILL LIST where British social drama meets unrestrained horror but ends up being a bit seen it all before where the protagonists lock themselves in a farmhouse . If nothing else it's no worse than WORLD WAR Z and cost 150 million dollars less to produce and does contain a deeply cynical line

" What are the police doing ? "

" Oh it's the end of the world let's phone the f---in pigs "

which caused me to stifle a laugh but there's not much of a film here

Before Dawn is about an estranged couple who go on a vacation to save their troubled relationship, but things goes awry when they find themselves under attack from the walking dead. The first half of this film is literally all mama/papa drama. I kept pulling up the movie on IMDb to make sure it was a horror movie and not a drama. After about 35 minutes of boring relationship drama, we see out first zombie. Once the scene with the zombie is over, it's back to more drama. The last 20 or so minutes of the film start to get a little interesting, but not enough to make up for the hour of boringness! Before Dawn is not really a horror at all, it's a full-blown drama with a couple zombies thrown in for substance. I think if you watched it going in, knowing that it was a drama and not expecting a horror, and then it would probably be pretty good. But since I only watch horror, I found it to be boring. Although the ending was kinda cool and the zombies were the spaz-iest zombies I've ever seen, still not enough to give this movie anything higher than a 4.

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BEFORE DAWN is a low budget, low rent zombie movie, made and filmed in Yorkshire by husband and wife team Dominic Brunt and Joanne Mitchell. Brunt is best known to viewers of UK TV as the lovable Paddy in the long-running soap EMMERDALE, so watching him battle vicious zombies in this film (which he also wrote and directed) is something of a novelty.

Unfortunately the novelty value is just about all this has going for it, because boy, BEFORE DAWN is bad. I actually didn't mind the ultra slow, family drama of the first half, purely because the horror comes subtle and there's a growing sense of unease which works really well. Some nice location photography really adds to the experience and I was left with high hopes for the rest of the production.

Sadly the zombie denouement is less than impressive and something you'd expect to see in the likes of shot-on-video trash like ZOMBIE CHRONICLES. Brunt unwisely employs some extreme (and ludicrous) shaky-cam effects for the zombie attack sequences, which are overblown and ridiculous. There's no zombie horde here, no shambling menace, just a story that peters out leading to an anticlimax that makes you think "that's it?". I like Brunt but a dearth of originality makes BEFORE DAWN one of the worst zombie movies out there.

Someone urged me to watch this movie because they had seen it at a festiival a few years ago, but I couldn't find it anywhere, luckily a stream into UKs Horror Channel provided through Film On allowed me to see this.

The guy that makes the movie is the same guy who made a Bait which I really enjoyed, but this is a whole different ballgame. For some unknown reason the cast were not recorded (sound) at the time of shooting, yes they say the lines but clearly no sound guy was tasked with recording actual audio. Therefore all that is done post filming, I believe they call it adr. This was awful there is no background sounds, everything deathly quiet. Worse still the performances because of the soap opera style approach to horror feel removed. Don't get me wrong performances are good, the film is quite good because it's a thinking zombie movie, it's different. But this whole sound issue, it does not allow you to fully engage in the film. You just simply don't feel that level of attachment. Because I could not get into the zone, the film simply does not work for me on any level.

I had the good fortune to see this picture at Frightfest 13. The film opens with beautiful shots of the British countryside, immediately making you think "how can anything bad happen here".

But being a movie with the living dead you already know the answer.

This is an intimate film as you follow this couple on there last ditch attempt to save their marriage. Indeed the film could have played out as the final death throes of a relationship without the invasion of zombies and indeed Dominic Brunt's desperation to resuscitate what has died is palpable.Joanne Mitchell as Meg is superb and makes a potentially unsympathetic character someone you care about.The acting is measured non-histrionic and understated.Everything is very real.

The message of the film could very much be "there are greater horrors in life than zombies".

Although they are flesh eating zombies in the film this could easily be enjoyed as a companion piece to "28 Days Later".

The waves of horror that wash over you and the emotional ride Dominic Brunt goes through are brilliant.

A cracking script, a strong cast,, and excellent camera work allow you to over look the perhaps not perfect make-up or the overdubbing, but this is to be too critical of a film that succeeds to strike a different note in the genre and bring a solid sense of reality and horror to what is happening whether it's the zombies or the death of a marriage.

Recommended.