Long Time Dead

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

Set and shot in Britain,LTD would be pretty indistinguishable from being shot in Hollywood.It's a horror thriller about a oujia board that works thanks to some nifty camera work,a jolty score and some rather grisly effects.And all at a running time of just an hour and a half.This is overall an intriguing and original premise,and while maybe not as delivering as it could have been,should be checked out,maybe with the aid of a speaker sound system.***

LONG TIME DEAD

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Sound format: Dolby Digital

During a Ouija session, several drunken teenagers summon a djinn which proceeds to kill them, one by one.

Though clearly influenced by American horror movies, LONG TIME DEAD finds an echo in Michael Armstrong's UK thriller THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR (1969), in which bored teenagers inadvertently sparked the wrath of a deadly killer - in Armstrong's film, the villain was an all-too-human maniac, whereas Marcus Adams' updated version unleashes the forces of supernatural terror on its hapless protagonists. Alec Newman (from the TV remake of DUNE) is the unofficial leader of the group, whose father (Michael Feast) was involved in similar jiggery-pokery many years earlier, leading to several deaths witnessed by Newman as a child.

The movie opened in UK theaters to scathing reviews and dismal box-office, and while the artless, multi-authored screenplay wanders aimlessly from scene to scene (the curse of so many modern horror films), it isn't nearly as bad as various reviews have suggested. Performances are uniformly fine (particularly Newman as the damaged young man forced to come to terms with his father's terrible legacy, and former soap star Joe Absolom as a potential victim), and Adams stages the various set-pieces with brisk precision, building to a fiery showdown between Newman and the unstoppable monster. The narrative makes little sense, but the movie is efficient and watchable, and amounts to passable popcorn entertainment, nothing more or less.

In the 1960's the Hammer Horrorr films helped to almost single handedly revitalised the british film industry - but lately we haven't seen much Horror (film wise) coming out of the UK. Long Time Dead tries to recify this with mixed results. Though not brilliant and lacking a lot of the audicity of the Hammer films, as well as the eerie spookiness of the lastets supernatural hits - THE OTHERS and SIXTH SENSE, Long Time Dead does manage a few tense moments - nothing overly scarey mind you but I didn't hate it.

The trouble is it is trying to follow an American formula - a group of teenagers fooling around with the supernatural unleash something terrible and most of them die as a result.

It also has the now mandatory - "it's not really over" ending.

That said it is okay and fans thirsty for a bit of spooky old fashioned horror/supernatural/teenage thriller will probably enjoy it.

Just as an aside I recommend viewers who did enjoy this or who are interested in the Demon DJIN which features in this film would enjoy WishMaster - the Wes Craven film. It is far more bloody and violent but the Djin is also much more developed.

The attempt to bring the ouija board theme to a movie sounds good idea, and the first 10 minutes are kind of scary. There was so much potentinal at the beginning of the movie, sadly it fails. The plot is nothing new, it couldn't scare even if taken seriously, the directing is good at some point, but as we can't see the "djinn" until the end we can't get scared in the death scenes. The good thing about the movie is the acting, and I could say the effective score. The ending is quite good that's all I can say about it.

"Long Time Dead" is recommended for recent fans of the horror genre, even though it failed to promote the horror genre of the new century. Watch it for some fun!

This movie started off quite boring but it soon got very scary, and by scary i mean good too. I liked it very much...

I couldn't help reading one of the posts to this movie where some stupid guy said that British horror movies are no good and jeepers creepers from USA is a lot better... i sooo disagree with him... ok, hollywood makes a lot of quality movies but check out the british too..

If you like this movie i recommend also "My Little Eye".

4/5