Dead Night

I got curious after reading all the negative comments online about this movie. And after watching it I have to say, it's not that bad. Ok, I understand that the story and the plot are vague and it leaves many questions. But to give it such bad ratings and reviews is a bit out. There are movies that are way worse than this and yes, also better. It's not a masterpiece and won't be a favorite. But it still has some descent acting, descent fx, nice cinematography and atmosphere.

Apparently this film underwent heavy re editing just before release. As such it suffers with a nonsense story . The basic premise is a family of four along with a friend of he daughter travel to a remote cabin in the woods with the promise of the areas holistic properties . Once there they seemingly discover an unconscious woman in the snow, and take her back which leads to dire supernatural consequences. On the plus side, it's beautifully shot. The lighting , camera work , sound design and music are all top notch. It's quickly paced and gets straight into the action. There are some truly creepy creature designs, practical gore and violent kills. The cast does a mostly good job, with one notable exception of a scene where the mother deals with whats happened to her family . On the negative side, the film does a poor job of guiding the audience about whats going on in regards to the supernatural elements. Characters just seem to show up out of nowhere, very little or no explanation of what creatures are, their purpose or what they are actually needing victims for. We get a brief exposition dump in regards to Barbara Crampton's character. Also a pet peev of mine, is where at the or near the beginning of a movie, it will show you scenes of what happens at the end of the story and then goes back in time and tell the story via a kind of flashback. It completely undercuts tension as you already know the fate of most characters, and therefore you are just waiting for them to die. This movie kind of does that , by having scenes involving a true crime style TV show giving you the 'official' version of whats happened. Even though events play out differently in the movie compared to whats shown on this faux TV show , it still reveals characters fates and therefore the same issue. I feel in an attempt to be clever the film makers have done themselves an injustice, and would have benefited in telling the story in a more traditional narrative and spent more time setting up more context for whats going on. However what we do see on screen is well done and great effects and shot really well

Yes there were alot of things that could have been done better, but the story was solid, but there was definitely somethings lost in translation. The actors were great and the plot was good. The director was obviously new to this. The other reviews you read that trash the film should give it a try and see how they're reviewed. Every person giving a nasty review thinks their Francis Ford Coppela or something

If you asked me what this movie was about I'm not sure I could tell you. The acting is good so it's definitely not for lack of trying on the actors' part. The tv show within the movie is absolutely pointless. It distracts from what's going on, not that it matters because nothing is ever explained. It's like the writers had five or six good ideas and tried to stick them all into one movie, absolutely failing in execution. Surely someone in production at some point could tell this movie was going to suck because of the plot. I just wished they'd have spoken up and saved me about 90 minutes. I love horror movies but after watching so many terrible ones lately I'm about to give up on them.

My quick rating - 4,9/10. Have you ever wondered how the news is going to report some supernatural, witch like massacre that occurs at a cabin in the woods (as always)? Well, this movie tries to give you just that, the way the media would report it, and how it actually happened. Pretty clever idea as this movie runs with the supernatural reality happening, while on the tv is a "true crimes" type show showing the case at the same time. The only real problem is with a nice idea like this, you really should craft a good story to do this with. The story itself just wasn't captivating enough to make the novel approach to telling it worth it. They did do a good job with the gore to keep you entertained though. Definitely sits on the "so close" bar of what could've been a really good flick. If you want to see a decent family gets slaughtered for no apparent reason movie, and don't mind the plot really not being explained in the slightest (the real plot, not the tv show plot) than you'll be fine with this one. Kept my attention after it got rolling, I just kept hoping for a bit more.