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A random group of young adults who are some combination of roommates/friends takes time out from their busy partying schedule to play with an improvised Ouija board, when they accidentally call forth a djinn who tells them that they will all die.

Long Time Dead is quite a mess, made all the more frustrating by occasional flashes of competence. It couldn't have helped that that a veritable army of writers--seven credited in all--worked on the story and script, including director Marcus Adams.

After a brief prologue set in the late 1970s in Morocco which was far more promising than most of the film proper, we begin meeting our bloated cast of heroes. There are eight of them, maybe all living in the same building or apartment, except for Lucy (Marsha Thomason), who appears to be living on a boat near the building. If I sound unsure, it's because Adams is not able to clearly establish the characters, their relationships to one another, or the relationships of one location to another. It doesn't help that a few of the five males look alike, and they all dress alike. Neither does it help that as the film progresses, various characters arbitrarily appear and disappear for random lengths of time. That fact is indicative of the pacing problems that plague the film on many levels.

It's not often very clear why any characters are doing whatever they happen to be doing at a given moment. Most of the plot seems like an excuse to put characters in very stereotypical horror/thriller scenarios, where they slowly walk around an environment frightened, becoming startled in various ways until finally some unseen thing kills them. These scenes are often competent, and occasionally they're good, but in the context of the film, they have little dramatic impact. Much of Long Time Dead plays more like a sample reel of "scare scenes"; it has little coherency as a story.

A big problem is that the chief villain is never clearly shown, explained or given any rules to follow. For most of the film, the villain is invisible. Invisible villains are usually a problem, and often indicate deficiencies in budget and/or imagination. Oddly, by the end, there is a concrete villain and the film has devolved into a fairly stock thriller, where we have to guess whom the possessed cast member is.

Although the story has promise, and the ending is somewhat of an improvement, even though it never rises above the cliché, Long Time Dead is too burdened with severe flaws in direction, cinematography (the film is frequently far too dark) and performances to merit a recommendation. I ended up granting a 4 (equivalent to a "high F" letter grade) because of the adequacy of some of the "scare" and death scenes, the good ideas in the backstory, and the slightly more engaging climax. The film would have been much better if the prologue and the subsequent events with Becker and the one character's father who ended up in a mental institution had been the focus, but alas, it was not to be. Let's hope Adams fares better the next time around.

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.

Considering the time the film was released, it seems like interesting cinematic techniques were used. Although it does not offer much in terms of acting, its plot and the progression of events have an intriguing effect. Until a certain point in the movie, it is not clear which character has the evil spirit inside them. This is a good thing because it keeps the excitement high. Of course, it has its shortcomings. It's not a horror with a lot of blood and gore. It could have been done much better. Still, it can be said that it is one of the productions that those who are interested in ouija board will enjoy watching. Although the ending is not very surprising, it is not a bad movie.

The idea was interesting and the movie was OK at the beginning, then it goes downhill. I mean, it turns boring because it is the same we have seen a million times: A group of people are in a house and an unknown entity kills the guys one by the other.

Besides the characters are not particularly likable so you don't care if they are killed or not. Characters development is very important but the writer here did not pay too much attention to this, so each person means the same to you.

The movie has some good chilling moments, but it is that kind of flick only enjoyable by teenagers. By the way, there are some cheap SFX at the end that makes you laugh.

I am surprised at the mixed views on this film. Reading the back cover I knew it was a gamble but it paid off.

I watched it without any hype or recommendation, and thought it was a pretty good film.

Someone rated it 2/10. Has this person seem some of the rubbish horror films in the video store.

I thought the acting was very good. A welcome relief from some of the American garbage.

7/10

A group of friends decide to use a Ouiji Board to make contact with spirits. Something does not happen as expected and an evil spirit is released. They receive a message from beyond advising they all will be dead soon. The quantity of clichés in this movie is amazing. You know what is going to happen in the next scene. The problem is to guess who will be killed next. However, the sound effect on DVD is great. The most original part is on the end of the movie, in the last scene: after so many clichés, you would never expect for such a good end of the plot. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "O Jogo dos Espíritos" ("The Spirits Game")

although Long Time Dead has nothing new to offer to the diserning horror fan it isnt at all bad. When you think about it there arent that many films that involve Ouiji boards which is quite suprising when this activity is one of the most terrifyingly mysterious known. It is also nice to see another good British horror. If you like this then be sure to get hold of Dog Soldiers which is even better. There is some nice ( that is not really the apt word!)moments and even a good twist or two that for a change the viewer does not see coming. Not a cheerleader or token dork in sight. Long live british horror. 7 out of 10.

I vaguely remember the trailers for LONG TIME DEAD and recall it did fairly poorly in cinema tickets and rental sales . I thought because it was released in the same year as two other very well regarded British horror movies , one featuring a squad of British soldiers as good guys fighting a bunch of werewolves and the other featuring a squad of British soldiers as bad guys battling against crypto zombies , that LONG TIME DEAD may have got lost in the market place but after finally seeing it I doubt if the merits of DOG SOLDIERS and 28 DAYS LATER had anything to do with its failure - The reason it bombed is that it's a rather poor horror movie

First of all can we please stop seeing movies where horny , drug taking teenagers get stalked and slashed . I had become very fed up by this plot by the early 1980s and it stopped being a good premise 20 years ago . Okay SCREAM and FINAL DESTINATION used the same plot but the producers at least tried to do something a little bit different with the plot where as in this movie it's just well worn cliché as is the set up with a ouija board

Okay I'm in a generous mood so I won't put the boot into director because it's a debut and I imagine Marcus Adams had a lot of enjoyment shooting the picture and it is fairly stylish . I should also point out that there is a not unimpressive sequence where two characters enter a house only for them to come to a sticky end . Unfortunately Mr Adams also wrote the screenplay and it's this that is the film's undoing

I'm not much of a horror fan and though I enjoyed the 2002 releases where the British Army let off a few shots at monsters in abandoned houses there's little in this movie to recommend unless you're a horror movie addict

If you liked Final Destination and horror movies because of the thrills and not the gore, you'll enjoy this one. Sometimes a lot of blood and people get killed (slaughtered sometimes), but many excitement all along. The first 10 minutes with loud music are a bore, but then the story takes off. Supernatural with an open end that could have been better.

Honestly, I am slowly but surely losing all faith in the IMDb rating system. At the moment, this film is rated 4.7, and in my humble opinion that simply isn't fair. I consider myself a Horror fan, and I really enjoyed Long Time Dead.

I've seen comments and reviews stating that the acting and script were bad. While people are entitled to their own opinion, I have to disagree. The acting and script might not have been Oscar material, but that doesn't make them bad. We are talking about a film that from the beginning revolves around like 7 characters, so having no characters stand out simply means that all the cast had around the same level of talent. As for the screenplay - I thought the story was pretty good, the whole Ouija-Board/Occult/Demon combination worked rather well. Cinematography and effects were also quite awesome, nothing too fancy and no "overkills", just the right dosage.

All in all, I enjoyed every minute, and while Long Time Dead (not the right title in my opinion) might not have been one of the best Horror films I've seen, it's a long way from being one of the worst. Seeing such underrating frustrates and annoys me, and I feel like rating it 8 just to increase the average ratings. However, remaining objective and honest, I'll stay true to my original opinion and rate it a 7. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good scare!

Britain has a long history of horror movie productions, with the heyday for such movies being the period of the late 1950s to 1980. Hammer, Amicus and Tigon combined produced the vast majority of British horror movies during this period and helped to keep the industry alive in the 1970s when American investment dried up. Two excellent independent directors, Pete Walker and Norman J. Warren, succeeded them in the mid-1970s and continued their excellent work.

Some viewers of movies from the British horror heyday get the false impression that they were all about vampires, monsters and witchcraft. Well, I admit there were plenty of examples of this type of movie but they were plenty of other types that fall well outside this category. Take for example, Hammer's DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE or the Amicus anthologies or Pete Walker's FRIGHTMARE. Or what about a movie that was not produced by any of the sources I mentioned - THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE.

Since the 1980s, there have been very few British horror movies worth mentioning. The British movie industry has tried unsuccessfully for nearly 30 years to mimic the style and content of infinitely superior American movies rather than staying to its true roots.

LONG TIME DEAD is one such unsuccessful example - funded in part with taxpayers' money through the UK Film Council. British people have the right to be angered their hard-earned cash has been put towards such a travesty as this without them having any say in the matter.

The plot of this movie sounds really great on paper - a group of students having an all-night party start messing around with a Ouija board and unleash an evil Djinn. One-by-one they are murdered in gruesome ways, leaving the survivors to solve the mystery.

Those who say this movie is a throwback to the heyday of British horror are simply wrong. The movie is very clearly inspired by superior recent American teenage movies such as I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER and URBAN LEGEND to name just two. There are even a few nods to modern minor classics such as SCREAM and one stylish nod to THE EVIL DEAD.

Unfortunately the final result of this movie is something less akin to the decent movies mentioned and more in common with lame cheap straight-to-DVD movies such as THE CHOKE and ONE OF THEM. As in those two movies, characters disappear for long periods of time without explanation. And when any are killed, their friends soon forget about them.

As one would expect with this type of movie, the acting is unilaterally awful, ranging from no acting to overacting. Joe Absolom was more interesting to watch as Matthew Rose in the British soap, EASTENDERS. He was a good choice of actor to have in this movie but his talent is completely wasted.

The dialogue in LONG TIME DEAD is truly terrible. I was reminded of another British horror movie made around the same time called CRADLE OF FEAR. However, CRADLE OF FEAR was much funnier and enjoyable on the "so bad it's good" level thanks to some overacting on the part of lead actors, some weirdo characters who were interesting to watch and cheesy special effects.

The score for this movie has nothing at all to do with the horror theme and sounds just like a random pop song of the kind Hollywood choose to tag on to the end of their movies. It is not worthy of a British horror movie. Listen to the scores of movies from Britain's horror heyday and make the comparison.

Perhaps the worst crime of all in this movie is the sheer tedium. There are long periods of time when nothing is happening. Characters are wandering around checking out places but there is no suspense, no tension. There are only the clichéd jump scares that became worn 20 years ago.

The movie does have a few good points. The killing scenes are well-executed, leaving the most gory effects to the imagination and there is at least some attempt at a decent build-up to them. It is only for this reason that I give the movie a rating of 2 rather than 1.

Overall, I do not recommend this movie at all. American viewers would do better to stick to their own movies, they are far superior. Those wanting to see a proper British horror movie should do themselves a favour by seeking one out from the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s when we had proper talent in this field.

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.

This movie seems to owe a huge debt to Final Destination, in that the film is primarily about horrible fate hunting down a group of teens one-by-one.

I found the characters even more cardboard-cutout than those in F.D. Main difference is that here the threat is personified, but the boogity stays so undeveloped that this is a weakness. The father should have been developed quite a bit more, and the landlord could have been a very interesting pivot point for the story, instead of serving merely as a red herring or distraction.

The fact that the ending was actually an ending, rather than a Hollywood sequel-tease was nice, however.

Watchable, but only just. If, however, you go all weak-kneed over mush-moufed British accents, you might like it more than I did.

I got this movie in a four pack creature feature from wally world that had a discount for a movie ticket on it. So my expectations going into this movie weren't very high.

The acting is okay. The actors seemed to take their job seriously, save for the dude with the long hair. Direction is competent. The special effects are conservative but done well when they appear. Costumes and setting are very good. The background music is good, but the radio and club music is generic house pop typical of the early 2000's, making the movie seem rather dated; although that doesn't tend to bother me. It's the movie script and story itself that is the downfall of this movie.

I read that there were six writers of this script. Six? Really? The way it was written, it seemed like a college horror movie project with a big budget. While the actors did their job, the way the characters were written was typical and banal.

Like Wishmaster, it takes a cursory understanding of non-Western mythology and makes it appear scary and evil. A middle schooler could write the same kind of "oooh, bad spirit comes to the material world to kill and cause chaos" plot line. While it could have had potential, there is nothing interesting or clever about this movie, which is sad because it was so professionally put together.

5/10 stars.

No offence to British film-makers, hey I'm British, but they are usually very, very bad at creating horror films, so I didn't really know what to expect when I went to see this film, but it got into the cinema so it must be worth it, with the exception of, 'Jay and Silent Bob strike back!' and 'Dog Soldiers' (that was a bit unoriginal and had some pretty pathetic lines in it), I mean. But actually it was quite good, lots of jumps and I liked the characters, at times it was quite scary and I thought the ouji (don't know how to spell it) board idea was good, people say its unoriginal but hey, how many movies about ouji boards have you seen? Anyway I found this quite a good film and the acting was quite good, I thought the way it was shot was really cool and gave a great effect to the movie, overall I give it ******** out of ********** for a horror flick

Good Movie!

Top_Movie_Fan-Fave-Film_Powder_4eva!

I've always been a fan of horror movies and must have seen hundreds of them. Some are badly done, some done on a tight budget, but most have at least something to keep you interested. The only thing I kept doing during this one was checking how long it would be before it ended, because this is AS BAD AS IT GETS. Avoid it at all costs!

I was lucky enough to catch a preview screening of this back in June 2000, and I will say that it is actually very good. Recent British Horrors haven't really been up to scratch, but this provides everything you need for a good time, and a good scare. Also, it stars the lovely Lara Belmont, and the talented Lukas Haas, so that makes it worth watching anyway!! I rated it 7 and reccommend it to any scare fan.

Long time dead sticks to all the clichés of America Teen horror films, however it manages to do so with a lot more class. The story is more dark than funny, with some truly heart-jumping moments. It's set in London, in abandoned warehouses, scrap-yards, and dingy student apartments. The main plot involves a group of students deciding to do a ouiji board, but the consequences leads to a fire-demon monster being released into the world. The first half of the film is good and moves at a fair pace, with classic suspenseful moments. The fast movement in camera shot helps to make the viewer feel like being in this roller coaster ride of FEAR, and with one of the teens being possessed by the demon, it keeps you guessing, and a dark secret from one of the students causes more angst.

However as soon as it is revealed the film dies out to a predictable end. This film has been done before, but I'm sure it will be a success if only to see the scariest sets imaginable and the classic light bulb smashing scene!

It was an impulse decision, I wanted a scary movie and I just grabbed this from the shelf and I am glad I did. Its been a long time since I have seen a low budget British film that I have enjoyed and this came as a pleasant surprise, it is well filmed but doesn't go down the route of trying to be too clever. It just shows you what you need to see, avoiding most of the gruesome events and instead showing you the result. It entertains, suggests and of course scares. If don't have the preconception that you are going to watch an extremely clever horror and are just looking for a back to basics horror then you should enjoy this.

Being a Catholic I was very apprehensive about seeing this film as it deals with the occult and Ouija boards. It has an on-the-edge-of your-seat feel. The young cast plays out amazingly well. English viewers will recognise Joe Absolom and Marsha Thompson. Lukas Haas adds to the international mix. If you've seen this and Thir13en Ghosts, you will know that this is the better of the two - That's my opinion anyway. This is simply an amazing film, you won't believe that it's a Brit-flick. It gives a new meaning to the words 'Scary Movie' A few words of advice if you see this at night, you won't wanna go to sleep for hours!!

I was really looking forward to this film and huddled up on the sofa with a glass of wine last night to watch it. As a horror movie fan, I was expecting something different from a British film and I certainly got my wish. While watching this steaming pile of horsesh*it, my mind wandered off to the point that I actually thought I'd fallen asleep. Suffice to say that I hadn't dropped off but suffered some temporary memory loss induced by this celluloid form of sedative. I couldn't care less who'd been killed, who was going to be killed or who the damn Djinn was. There was no continuity, the acting was truly abysmal and the plot had more holes than a slice of emmental cheese. If you're suffering from insomnia try this movie.