Near Death

This movie has one of the coolest stories I've seen in a long time. Three students researching supernatural activity come upon a mansion inhabited by ghosts from the 1950's. There is the spirit of an old film director: Willie Von Brahm, his star: Vena (a prettier version of Gloria Swanson from sunset boulevard), his leading man: Harlan, Doctor Blanchard etc. The whole cast is colorful and entertaining. I especially liked the scenes at the pawnshop and at the beach. Probably the best thing about this movie is the sets. The rooms in the mansion are really cool, you can see this is where most of the budget went. the camera work is so/so, the actors have good scenes. Also interesting is the subplot involving Markie selling dead bodies to the ghosts for money.

Near Death has all the elements of a straight-to-video movie: Hot guys, hot girls, lots of blood, good visuals, and plenty of scares. The actors are great, except there is one girl who is so bad that she sounds like a robot when she talks. It starts with these kids in a car out on the highway looking for a haunted mansion. They have a map and they argue a lot. When they finally find the place, they have an encounter with a team of ghosts. One of the girls falls in love with a ghost and is turned to the dark side. A bunch of people get butchered, and the two leads end up taking a shower together....hot!! The ghosts have to fight for their own survival, and you find out the secret of the movie, which is actually pretty trippy. I watched it again this morning.

After watching this movie I can only ask: "Why would anyone produce something like that?" You get a feeling that you are watching 1-2grade students performing in school skit, with the addition of getters props and decore.

One can't help, but wonder if this all the actors are capable of - most TV advertivements are better performed. One could say that these is a story befind it, but barely enough for a 1-2 page short story. As far as the director, it's dificult to imagine how he stood through it. I'll leave him with the benefit of the doubt, and speculate he just wanted to show how misguided the movie biz can get. If you've not watched this movie, I would suggest renting something else, or just watching the news.

I can't remember the last time I hated a movie 50 seconds in. This appears to be footage that was shot for a backdrop to a video game which must have never been developed so the owner's decided to release it as a film. I don't know if comparing it to a student film disses the film enough. It's pacing is softcore porn without the interesting dialogue...or porn. The only thing diabolical about this film is that it was ever swept up off the video editing suite's hard drive to see the light of day. Horrible...and not in a good way.

I have an open mind to bad horror, and continued to watch this film after the first 2 minutes to see if it would get any better, against my better judgement. Its hard to describe just how poor this film really is. Lets face it, I've seen better acting in a porn film. The script was ridiculous, the plot was laughable, and the effects made me cringe and/or laugh out loud. Someone should tell whoever is responsible for this waste of time that jello looks nothing like innards, and never will. The camera work was poor, and this film just had "amateur" written all over it. I am stunned that "offerings" like this are even released on DVD, and even more amazed that they even get financed in the first place. Its an hour and a half of my life that i will never get back, and that makes me sad. Please do yourself a favour, and don't touch this, or any other film by the same company with a very big long stick.