Trois jours à vivre

"In Drei Tagen Bist Du Tot" (2006) is an excellent slasher movie from Austria, a land that has, since the silent time, proved to deliver constantly world-class movies like no other German speaking land did. To whoever does not believe that, I highly recommend the "Hoanzl" collection with several hundreds of region-free available DVDs amongst which you will even find early Mihaly Kertesz = Michael Curtiz movies amongst other classics about which the non-European audience can just dream.

"In Drei Tagen Bist Du Tot" is remarkable in many respects: First, it is the first Austrian slasher movie. Second, practically all actors have never acted before. Third, the budged was 2 millions of Euros for which in Hollywood one would not even take a camera out of its closet. Third, the whole movie is spoken in Salzkammer dialect and, as usual in Europe, filmed In Loco. (On the contrary, in Hollywood movies it is usual nowadays that the beginning is filmed in Utah, the main part in Rumania, and the end in Canada.) In 2007, "In Drei Tagen Bist Du Tot" got amazingly the Austrian film price, the now so-called "Austrian Ticket" which was given before, in 1996, to Vilsmaier's "Schlafes Bruder". I also welcome this movie because Horror has a very small tradition in European film-making. While the Swiss film De Facto died with Kurt Früh in 1979 and the German film with Fassbinder in 1982, our whole hope stays with Austria.

5 friends just pass some grueling oral examination and graduate. At a party they all get the same SMS telling them that in 3 days they will be dead. And sure enough one of them is attacked and disappears. Two of the girls find him the next day drowned in the lake.

Another of the girls is later attacked, kidnapped, but with the help of another schoolmate who would like to join their clique she manages to escape. The schoolmate isn't that lucky. But at least she was able to see the face of the killer.

The police make a sketch and identify the killer she saw. It's someone who's been long dead. But the girl remembers something else. He's the father of a boy the kids new as children.

When 2 more kids are attacked finally the police tries to protect them. But they decide to go and investigate the house of the dead man where they find all sorts of secrets. In the end they confront the killer and the reasons are revealed.

Dead in 3 Days is a pretty decent Austrian horror movie. The kids are likable enough even though neither they nor the police act particularly rational given the circumstances. There is some good gore and it features the best use of a fish tank in a horror movie. Direction is good but there are some weaknesses as well- too many extreme closeups, the action is also filmed too close up that makes it hard to identify what is going on. Sounds effects are good but too loud.

Overall, an OK horror movie in a different setting and with an attractive and likable cast.

I was more than just a bit skeptical when it came to watching "In 3 Tagen bist du tot". The plot seemed pretty stupid and I wasn't convinced that the makers would be able to pull off something like that in a typical Austrian village setting. I was right about the first thing, but director Andreas Prochaska really did a nice job translating the essence of movies like "I Know What You Did Last Summer" into the Austrian landscape.

Sure, "In 3 Tagen bist du tot" suffers from the usual slasher weaknesses, but for once this is actually a good thing. It means that this movie is on one level with the international competition. The acting may not be Oscar material, but it could have been way more awful. What hurt the movie more is that it's pretty slow at times and although there are one or two scenes that will make you jump, there are too few of those shocking or scary moments. On the plus side, Prochaska makes great usage of that small town creepiness by setting some moody scenes on a lake or in an old, creaking house. There's also quite a bit of gore, which is never a bad thing in a slasher movie.

The movie's one big flaw, however, is the derivative plot. There is absolutely nothing new here story-wise. Imagine "Friday The 13th" with just a few "The Ring"-elements and you got "In 3 Tagen bist du tot". It's as if the producers focused more on making their version of the movies that attracted so many ticket buyers in the late 80's rather than actually trying to come up with something original. They were impressively successful in that aspect, but the next step should be to bring forward new ideas. Apparently, Austria is able to make good horror movies. Now it's time to go for a GREAT one. I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

This Austrian made slasher is nothing more than a rip-off of popular American slasher movies, like "Friday the 13th" or "I know what you did last summer" (this one was clearly a example for this one here). And like "I know what.." it's pretty bad and not really worth a watch, well, maybe if you wanna see how Austrians do it, go for it. For me the only thing really worth mentioning is the landscape, which looks really nice, it's set in a beautiful Austrian village surrounded by mountains, and the FX are pretty good and bloody, but it's just not enough of them. And for me a a Swiss person I also really like the Austrian language. And about the plot, not really worth mentioning, some plot holes here and there.

In 3 Tagen Bist Du Tot (Dead in Three Days) is labeled "Austria's first horror film". A quite passable one, I might add. It probably won't become a milestone within the genre, but if you're looking for real suspense and gore, this movie has plenty to offer.

Like many others, the film features a group of teenagers, more precisely two boys and two girls who have just graduated high school. While they're out celebrating, they all receive the same SMS: "Within 3 days you will be dead". It has to be a (very) bad joke, they think. Until one of them is found dead in the river the following morning...

I was positively surprised by this movie, mainly because the director, Andreas Prochaska (a former collaborator of Michael Haneke) knows how to terrify his audience even if the plot is all too familiar: 75% of the screenplay is shamelessly borrowed from other horror films, some blatantly (I Know What You Did Last Summer, Deep Red), others in a more subtle way (Halloween). There's also stuff from other kinds of flicks (a possible visual The Empire Strikes Back-reference).

Prochaska does, however, count on the surprise factor as well: not all in the script is a deja vu, and he takes advantage of those moments when we don't know what's gonna happen next to scare us witless, with almost sadistic joy (in terms of how off guard we're caught). People get hurt or killed in painful, stomach-churning ways (I had trouble sleeping for a few days after seeing the movie), and some victims are unexpected, too. This guy knows how to do horror, that's for sure. If only he'd been a little nastier with the ending, like Greg McClean did on Wolf Creek.

Overall, this is a decent horror film. Prochaska seems to have found a promising start for his directing career. If he takes better care of the script next time, he might even be able to join the likes of Carpenter and Romero in the genre's Hall of Fame.