Nine Dead

A masked creep kidnaps 9 people, puts them in a room, handcuffs them to a tube. He tells them their mission is to find out why there are there. Every ten minutes he will kill one of them unless they tell him the answer. The group is made up of a cop, two street thugs, a Vegas strip joint owner/mobster, a DA, a priest, a homosexual, a goody two shoes guy, and an Asian woman who doesn't speak English. What ensues is the typical American psycho horror: a bunch of people screaming at each other, insulting each other, grandstanding, deceiving, unable to work together, sometimes trying to work together. Obviously, they won't be able to find the answer in the first couple of 10-minute blocks. They touch on an important issue but don't see it's significance until later. Eventually they start "confessing" their sins, what each did that could have made someone mad enough to devise such a plan. So we learn something about them all. But whenever 10 minutes are up, the masked guy shows up, picks one of them, tells him the reason why they are there and then kills him. How it all turns out is quite interesting, but the ending not satisfying at all.

I'm not a fan of the idiots-bickering subgenre of horror, but this one does work. It doesn't take the insulting to insufferable extremes like the reality-footage movies but rather focuses more on the story. And you do want to find out what the story is. Even though the answer to the puzzle is somewhat mundane it is effective. The ending however is so weak it's puzzling. Performances are very good overall, and that's really the key in a movie like this. And the movie does manage to build quite a bit of tension.

9 people are kidnapped and tied up and told that unless they discover why they are there one of them will be killed every 10 minutes. It's a reasonably familiar tale but it's fun watching them try and discover why they are there.

The film features the usual eclectic mix, drug dealer, cops, priest etc. These type of films rely heavily on having interesting characters to watch and although there are plenty of clichés on show, I found the characters pretty entertaining. There isn't any SAW like gore in this film and most of the violence is off screen. I was a bit surprised to see Melissa Joan Hart from Sabrina the Teenage Witch fame in this and she is pretty good in this. The rest of the cast also put in decent believable performances.

As the captives piece together the puzzle and the numbers deplete it all winds down a bit to a slightly disappointing climax. The end scene being one of the most abrupt and unexplained I've ever seen.

Overall I found this a fairly enjoyable if limited thriller and probably wouldn't rush to watch it again.

Communication is the key to the survival for nine strangers who have been kidnapped by a masked gunman and told that one of them will die every ten minutes until they discover how they are all connected. Who of the nine lives and who dies?

I think it is safe to say that this film's biggest selling point is star Melissa Joan Hart, who also serves as a producer. I think it is also safe to say that she is the worst actor in this picture, being easily outdone by a handful of unknowns and Alec Baldwin's chubby brother Daniel.

The film has similarities to other films, notably "Saw 2" (a group of people all connected by a common, unknown bond) and "House of 9" (nine people -- including a priest -- in an enclosed location, getting killed one by one). This made me hesitant and have doubts, but I was soon shown the error of my ways. Rather than watch half-heartedly while doing other things, I had my eyes glued for 90 minutes to the screen. I was, frankly, impressed (though, again, Hart was a terrible casting choice).

I have to take issue with the glaring plot holes. The idea is that nine people have to find out what connects them. Once you find out what that thing is (and I will not reveal it here), it seems odd to me that the killer would know about the people's involvement in that thing. Some of them, yes, but most no. I guess I have to just let it ride...

NINE DEAD is a film entirely derivative of one of the SAW sequels in its storyline of a group of nine strangers who are kidnapped and trapped in a room by a mysterious killer. As he promises to kill the group one by one, they must work together to find out why they've been chosen and how they can hope to free themselves from their terrible situation.

This is a B-movie through and through, with a premise that naturally evokes tension let down by some very pedestrian execution. When former SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH star Melissa Joan Hart is the best they can do for a big-name star then you know the film is in trouble. Thankfully NINE DEAD avoids going down the 'torture porn' route which is to be commended, but the twists and turns are so resolutely silly that you can't help but be disappointed. The best thing about it? Daniel Baldwin's random, 10 second cameo.

I'll get to that in a moment.

For about as many unwanted Saw sequels we've had, it feels like we have about twice as many clones. Surprisingly, this one was executed in a way I haven't seen done prior, but it all ultimately goes back to putting strangers in a room.

**Rant about Melissa Joan Hart's acting**

Despite what I said in my other reviews where I might've mentioned that someone might've been the worst actor I've ever seen, Melissa Joan Hart in this movie takes the cake. I don't know if she's just not good in portraying the emotion of fear, but her acting singlehandedly kept me intrigued and glued. It was a guilty pleasure, very rarely do I get to see someone perform so badly at their craft. Her facial expressions were RIDICULOUS. She gestures and contorts her eyes, mouth, and particularly her EYEBROWS in unnecessary, cartoon-like ways. She puts the wrong emphasis on the words she's speaking, and delivers every line 'Nickelodeon style,' as if she's "giving it her all" on each line so you don't miss anything. Complete overacting, no nuance or subtlety. I haven't seen her in other movies, so I won't flat out say she's the worst actor ever, but this was the worst PERFORMANCE I've seen.

**Problems with the movie**

The story within the story was actually pretty decent and competently written, but the movie itself reeks of amateurishness. No wonder the writer of the script has this movie as his only credit for work he's done. I'm going to bookmark his IMDb page and periodically check to see if he does anything else, I'd surprised if he does. The story of how they were all connected to each other and how it relates to the masked kidnapper was intricately woven. That part was fine, it was the dialogue and the acting that killed this movie.

Here's the most infuriating thing- So the kidnapper comes in every 10 minutes to kill someone if they haven't figured out why each of them are being held captive right? Well, every time he comes in and chooses the person to kill, he gives them one last chance to explain why they're there, and if they get it right, he'd let them all go. All that these characters did was just try to reason by saying things like, "we need more time to figure it out." Don't you think you'd be speaking a hundred miles per hour on all the atrocities you might've done in your life and hope you guess right??? I'm sure anyone can imagine if they were in such a situation, you'd be nervously stumbling and stammering over words, but to not even so much as venture a GUESS is ridiculous. And yes, I realize the rules the kidnapper layed out was that each victim, upon their turn, had to not only guess why he or she was there, but why *everyone else was there as well. I have two counters to this:

1) When your life is on the line, and you think you have something to offer the killer as to what he's looking for, are you going to play by the rules? So what that you didn't meet the second qualification of knowing why the others were there, would you not tell this guy what "evil" things you think YOU might've done and hope you guess right? Clearly EACH person had a good idea of why they themselves were there, it was clear through the dialogue.

2) Even if you don't agree with my opinion above, then how about when there came a time in the movie where the characters more or less had the whole damn chain of events of the puzzle solved, with just a few missing pieces (at that point they still didn't figure out how the medical dude fit into the story). So they have 90% of it figured out, the killer comes in, and not ONE PERSON EVEN TRIES TO SELL HIM ON THEIR THEORY. The idiot cop just said something about, "we have most of it figured out, we need more time." WHY DON'T YOU TELL HIM WHAT YOU KNOW SO FAR YOU MORONIC IMBECILE. What, do you think he's going to prematurely kill you if you get the story wrong? And going even deeper into my abyss of madness (i.e., logic), I could sort of even understand why the other people who's turn hadn't come yet wouldn't say anything, so as to not bring attention to themselves by offering the solution (and potentially getting it wrong, and yeah, maybe being killed for it), But, if it's YOUR turn to die, and the killer is in your face, giving you one last guess to solve the puzzle, WHY WOULD YOU NOT TELL HIM WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW SO FAR??????????? Patrick Wehe Mahoney is probably the dumbest person on the planet. He's the writer..

Another stupid part:

Melissa Joan Hart said something about how a jury wouldn't rely on the testimony of a "60 year old woman." OMG, 60!! She's practically a dinosaur right? There's no way a 60 year old can remember something. Right…is this writer like 15 years old? Only young, dumb kids would think 60 is "senile and old."