Dead Within

I could've made this movie from my bedroom. The story was somewhat interesting but was executed in a very bad bad way. It could be much better but the director only focus on One thing which is so not important. I mean, we get it!! The audiences have sense. For instance, if you want make a movie is about people taking showers is important, you really don't have to make a whole movie showing shower scene only. You can just watch the first 10 minutes and the last 10 minutes, trust me you won't miss anything. Or you can just fast forward. If anyone would try to copy the movie's concept and make a short video on youtube, all you have to do just lock yourself in your room for couple days I believe it will be more fun to watch than this movie.

I ended up hating it.

I saw the low ratings and decided to give it a shot anyway. It's the kind of movie that has the potential to give us situational horror instead of just another gore-fest. I like character driven movies if they can deliver compelling characters and an interesting story. Sadly Dead Within just doesn't deliver. On any front.

As another reviewer mentions: It isn't a Zombie flick. He's right. It is the result of somebody having the idea to make a Zombie movie but not having any real cash to spend. Basically: "We can't afford the costs of having a horde of Zombies in our movie so we will basically shoot most of it in one small set with only 2 actors, and the story will be about the people trying to survive and not about the Zombies."

Unfortunately the creators of this micro-budgeted waste of time make the same mistakes as so many other low-budget filmmakers: They seem to have hired actors because they would work cheap instead of hiring them because they can act.

I don't want to mislead you into thinking that the acting is the only bad component of this movie though. The direction and editing are lousy too. Camera-work is not terrible but it certainly doesn't add anything to the viewing experience. It's shaky and hand-held low-budget stuff. The writing, if you can call it that is unoriginal and tells a disjointed story with way too many flashbacks. The ending is pretty much NOT a surprise. Despite having four credited writers, two of them being the lead actors, it feels mostly improvised. There isn't much in the way of special effects and what there is is pretty amateur. The "Zombies" are basically people with black contacts. Those contacts, some gauze and some black "blood" that looks like used motor oil are the majority of the makeup effects.

The only bright light in the whole sorry effort is the sound. It SOUNDS creepy.

2 out of 10

"Baby, maybe we're just both crazy. What if we're, like, in The Truman Show ? There is no plague. And...there's cameras everywhere."

I'm certain that many will speak disparagingly about this movie. Typical statements as a total lack of tension, a deadly dull storyline, a cheaply produced film at a single location and the absence of confrontational, brutal and bloody images with zombies feasting on human flesh, will be used in abundance. But admit it, most zombie films use the same clichéd image of a slow walking living corpse, hungry for fresh blood, with a pale gray face with lifeless eyes in dark eye sockets staring into nothingness. "World War Z" used a very different approach to the phenomenon zombie and their characteristics were highlighted in a very different way. In "Dead Within" you only have the nasty outside sounds and short excerpts of transformed creatures. And frankly, I thought the opening fragment with those awful noises was quite frightening: the primitive growling and screeching nocturnal creatures (weird but it reminded me of "Jurassic Park") and the cries in terror of the victims being dismembered. Turn the sound wide open and those hysterical cries will give you the shivers.

Apart from the opening scene (a staggering three split view with out of sync customized images) and the final scene, the complete film takes place in a wooden cabin somewhere in a forest at an unknown place. We see how Mike (Dean Chekvala) and Kim (Amy Cale Peterson), along with their newborn baby Lily and dog Teddy, arrive at the cabin of their friends Todd and Erika, where they probably expected to enjoy a long relaxing weekend. First there are fragments of them socializing. But this is abruptly broken off, and we see Mike and Kim on a dowdy mattress with a machete and a kind of riot-gun by their side. After a while we learn that they are hiding for 6 months already in this barricaded hut, letting no one inside because a deadly virus has spread (though if that happened locally or globally is a non-answered question) which transforms living creatures into black-eyed undead with ink black blood flowing through their veins. Apparently it affects every living being (the dog Teddy is a living proof of that). I asked myself at that time if there could be deadly squirrels or rabbits creeping through the woods.

For the horror freaks who enjoy gory movies with plenty of severed limbs and gore scenes, I can already tell them that this will be a total disappointment. The only thing we are witnessing is the gradual change that Kim is undergoing caused by the total isolation. Mike is the only one who leaves the cabin on a regular basis (where he is risking his health and life every time) to seek for food and other consumables. Kim tries to kill her time by cleaning up once again, playing the guitar and to create a wall painting. It's obvious that after a while the two survivors not only need to fear what's wandering outside, but also realize that the growing paranoia and the realization that their situation seems to be hopeless becomes a threat. We see Kim evolving into a state of fairly psychotic behavior with delusions and conversations with imaginary people.

Is it an excellent movie? No, not exactly. The repetitive situations and the lack of information won't make it an exciting movie. The use of flashbacks provide a partial explanation but after a while that starts to innervate anyway. The minimalistic use of real horror images also isn't an advantage. Is it a dreadful movie? No, not exactly either. The inner tension and the constant threatening atmosphere made sure it was entertaining in a way. And especially the performances of the two protagonists is magnificent. It's not obvious to portray such a situation in a convincing way. It's the same familiar situation as with two people who sat together for a long time in a confined space and trifles start to irritate them. "Dead within" is an atypical zombie movie where the emphasis is more on the psychological state of mind of survivors than on the destructive nature of mutated creatures. A survival film avant la lettre with anxiety, guilt and madness as a central theme.

More reviews here : http://bit.ly/1KIdQMT

The script for this movie was probably excellent, the execution should have been taken out and shot. The movie is about a pandemic of some sort leaving a couple isolated and trapped in a remote cabin in the woods while it unfolds. When I say unfolds I use the term loosely as the movie gets stuck very early and the over use of flash backs causes it to drag on and on. Attempts to create emotional connection just leave you bored at best. They come far too late in the movie, you are saying OK already I got it 30 minutes ago, what happens next? The problem is nothing happens for a very long time. The positive reviewers of this movie are the ones who do not get it. The movie spells out the ending with blinding clarity but for some reason many people want to make it into more. The ending was never meant to be more than a culmination. There IS NO discovery, no revelation. No insight into the nature of mankind or deeper hidden meaning. The script was meant to be a journey not a destination. I cannot be more specific without giving away the movie, but suffice it to say that the director missed the point of the movie and irrevocably damaged it in the process. They thought they were being clever but instead it took the heart out of what could have been a very good movie.

Sticking needles ln my eyes would have been less painful than sitting thru this fiasco.