Dead Noon

As far as B-Movies go, this one certainly isn't the worst. Get stoned and enjoy some B-movie cheese that at least has a good story idea behind it. Also, I liked the music playing during the end credits. I wish more of the songs were available on Apple Music or something.

Arguably, laughably, as bad a movie (Should I really call this 'thing' a movie?) as I have ever wasted time watching. I did watch to the end because I kept thinking, "It can't be all as bad as what I have seen so far!" I was wrong! This flick gets the decades film awards for worst photography, terrible special effects, no continuity, nonexistent acting, and bad dialogue. From the lighting and photography I have to conclude that this was filmed with a Sony hand held video camera. The wounds, blood & gore shots, were so bad I wondered if this was a high school film club's first attempt at special effects. Though this film does time shift from different generations of Kane's, the dialogue differs between 'one' generation to the lead's great-great-great-grandfather, and early on the main antagonists repeatedly shoot each other but almost immediately thereafter neither has any wounds. The 'live' actors movements are childish & deadpan, like a zombie's. There is little to no emotion in the actor's voices regardless of the intensity of the scene. Almost every actor and actress is grossly overweight & buttugly. Save yourself 81 minutes of your life that will be wasted watching this disaster of a film.

I put this on expecting to turn it off after ten or twenty minutes but was engaged enough to watch it to the end.

It's not brilliant but it is fun, some of the other criticisms are unfair but some accurate, the director has been far too ambitious as evidenced by too many cheap looking FX shots (that said some are pretty good) and action sequences.

Given the obvious source material of High Noon I think sticking closer to that story line and racking up the tension with less reliance on dynamic scenes would have been better. This of course would have required half decent acting which for the most part was pretty ropey, but the three leads are competent particularly Elizabeth Mouton.

Criticisms aside this film is better than many films a hundred or even a thousand times the budget and wouldn't look out of place on late night TV.

All in all a good effort.

Dead Noon pretty much fails due to high goals of the director and a low budget that ruins a lot of the effects in this mix of horror and western elements. The opening is OK although the low budget is obvious in most shots. I have to credit the makers of the movie for still squeezing a lot out of their tight budget because some of the FX work pretty good, so when the first Zombie-Cowboys appeared it was still OK, although the ridiculous amount of shoot-outs and hunts with barely any dialog soon gets hard to bear and makes little sense. But when then skeleton armies appear, puppets are flying from cliffs, the stiff acting of many actors kills the plot which is pretty hard to stay focused on while being distracted by people running through abandoned cities and shooting with obvious stock-FX flares. Some scenes like most including the main "good guy" (who is really a bad cast for this role) for his stiff acting or the ridiculous fight scenes are hard to watch. While there was some decent parts the movie failed to build up tension or unfold the story in an interesting way. So its not just the effects and acting which make Dead Noon tank. Many parts are plain boring although there is permanent running and shooting. But its so repetitive and meaningless that you soon stop to care.

An outlaw, Frank (Robert Bear), who has the power to unleash the evils of Hell at will, returns with a vengeance to take down the lawmen. The sheriff (Scott Phillips), his brother (Robert Milo Andrus), and the owner of the local gun shop (Lillith Fields), join forces in order to take down this psycho hellion and his legion of the demonic undead. Kane Hodder also makes an appearance as a zombie cowboy.

I must admit, with as few quality (and few in general) horror-westerns, I'm always on the lookout for a gem. There are really only a few worthy of a look (most notably Ravenous), but I'll always give a look to any that come along. I believe the one major problem with making a horror-western is the fact that it takes place in the past. To recreate the towns, the costumes, etc., it takes money, which is something low-budget filmmakers obviously don't have. And those that have the money don't want to risk it on a dead genre (westerns). Sadly, I'm almost always disappointed. . . and 'Dead Noon' does not break that streak. I'll start by speaking of the plot: It's not bad. Sure, it's a little ridiculous, but c'mon. . . a maniac outlaw looking to seek vengeance by bringing the powers of Hell to Earth with him? That's a pretty cool combination of evil there. But, other than that. . . it's just all pretty awful. To start, these characters were just ridiculously poorly done. I mean, we have this sheriff and an outlaw that, in their first gunfight, can't hit a target to save their lives (literally), even with the sheriff firing at least ten shots out of his six-shooter. What kind of 'maniac outlaw' can't hit a man standing still four eight feet in front of him and vice-versa? Also, speaking of this outlaw. . . is he supposed to be, at all, imposing? At, probably, 5'6", 140 lbs, I was less scared of him than I was of Cat R. Waul in 'Fievel Goes West'! And Fievel was a better (and more powerful, it would seem) hero than all of them combined in this flick! Moving past the characters (for sake of my sanity), let me give a word on the effects (oh no). I'm sorry, but, if you can't afford to do effects well. . . why even bother using them? The blood, the gore, the fire (ESPECIALLY the fire), etc., were so fake-looking, the viewer is completely removed from the reality of the film. If you can't make the fire real, do the burnings off-screen. We don't NEED to see it. I think if you show someone holding a torch, then turn away, then show a smouldering pile, the viewer will understand. And the blood? I don't really get why, when you have fake-looking blood effects as it is, there's a need to show them far more than necessary and even have it splatter on the camera (à la 'Sweeney Todd'). The fakeness is already ruining the mood, so why rub it in our faces (almost literally)? So, now on to the technical aspects. . . well, the writing's not completely awful, just really not good. The writers (it took three to write this, apparently) made no attempt whatsoever to keep any kind of real "1800s"-style to their dialogue and actions. It's no difficult: Just watch a few John Wayne flicks and take notes on key words & phrases. How about the look of the film? Well, the cinematography was pretty horrendous and the cheap shot-on-video look was a complete mess (use film or at least some kind of graining effect to make it look more 'old-fashioned'). Guess the only thing left is the acting? Well, it's not much to speak of. Some of the actors are okay, some are very bad, just like in most low-budget affairs. The main problem I had with the actors is the actual casting. . . none of them really looked "Old West" to me. But, oh well, it's forgivable with something this cheaply made and it's certainly the worst of the worries about this film. Overall, it's a very bad film. It shows some heart and had a LOT of potential with that plot, but due to obvious budgetary constraints and poor execution, it crashes & burns in some extremely fake-looking fire.

Final verdict: 3/10. I think I'm being generous, but they tried, so I'll give 'em that.

-AP3-