The Dread (2007)

How sad is this?

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

A Brilliant Conflict

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

CAUTION: Plot spoilers present.Esteemed young documentary filmmaker Teri Brewer finds out on her mother's deathbed that she was adopted & that she had a slightly older brother who was placed into a mental asylum following the brutal but unsolved murder of their parents when they were infants. Tracking down the brother (named Alex), Teri & her boyfriend find themselves in danger when a malevolent spirit that had been residing in a video game that Alex had been playing at the time of the deaths comes out & uses Alex's body has a host in order to kill again.The Dread answers the question of whatever happened to female THE EVIL DEAD star Ellen Sandweiss – she's still stuck doing ultra-cheap horror schlock twenty years after her breakthrough role. But unlike The Evil Dead, which was gleefully inventive & darkly funny, The Dread is neither of those things.The main problem I had with the film was the central concept of a malevolent entity residing in a video game – as a dedicated video game player, I find any attempt by the conservative types out there to blame videogames as violent garbage that warps minds as nothing but unfounded rubbish (these same types also decry genre films as violent & bad for children but think nothing about allowing young people access to firearms – this kind of hypocrisy is what gets me really fired up in anger). The story is filled with stupid plot devices that make it look really bad in the eyes of genre fans – security is tight in the soon-to-be-closed asylum but a pair of horny teens manage to sneak in using a long forgotten service door that nobody in the asylum's staff even bothers to remember to use when the crap hits the fan. Some of the characters have been poorly written – Sandweiss' character walks around always holding a pencil (& sure enough gets impaled with all of her pencils in one of the film's more entertaining deaths], while some of the 'crazies' running around are age-old clichés.The film does manage to compensate slightly by having a reasonably gory third act but the climax fails to coherently explain the nature of the entity – the early parts of the film make a vague claim that the creature is living inside the video game that the child was playing, but later on the creature seems to be born inside the host & can jump to a sibling when the host dies. Nothing is explained satisfactorily enough to carry the film along, leaving the film to collapse like a house of cards.

How dreadfully true... Okay I personally didn't really find this to be such a bad film, but it definitely sure as Hell ain't such a good one either! It gets points for genuinely unsettling tone and atmosphere, but it also loses crucial points for the heaps of sheer lousiness and stupidity on display!!! This was ~so~ lame! All that confusing as heck stuff in the mad little prologue? That was not a homage, it was a blatant, near-total rip-off of Halloween! They also manage to slightly rip-off "Alien" too, at one point! And then there's the graphics of the of presumably 'cursed' video game that warps little Alex's mind that were so laughably pathetic they would have barely been acceptable on the Atari! Cheapness was the number one issue of this movie in my opinion. I know it was incredibly low budget, but surely it couldn't have cost much to move the camera a little every now and then just a bit so that every single damn scene didn't feel so wooden! Now the actors also I didn't find that terrible. Yes they were all dull and not one of them seemed able to speak above a monotone, but they were coherent and passable enough that you could follow the story, and let's just say they were right for this movie and leave it at that! I actually enjoy this movie a little, as horrors go, it's definitely beyond mediocre and poor, but hey it's still a lot better than the anti-movie that was "Troll 2." To me it was never so unbearably slow and boring that I couldn't stand watching it, and to my way of thinking a truly bad film is always one that is boring. And even though it never delivered I found it very compelling, and the small music score was effectively haunting. If there was one thing this excelled at, it was mood. It was set in a decrepit insane asylum, that's always a good thing to have in your horror picture! This sure wasn't the most sparkling example of one ever though.. I'm not even sure it was set in a real one, as all that is ever really seen is few cell rooms and the same giant hallway over and over. It was nice to see a TV horror movie that wasn't slathered in low-grade cgi, but unfortunately the overall look of the film is just too pale and grainy, especially in all the scenes that feature the grown up Alex. I think the blank expression on the guy's face was supposed to be all sinister, but it came more across as him just looking a little retarded. And the red scarecrow/grim reaper thing that he somehow had the mystical power to 'astral project' into amid fits of crazy spasming and weird static electric flashes, was plain pathetic and wasn't imposing or scary at all. It looked like a bunch of cheap rags with even cheaper makeup. And it didn't help one bit that it was mostly heavily obscured by shadows and quick cuts. ::: There's no bull about this crummy movie, it is what it is,, and asks nothing of the viewer except that they shut off their brain and at least try and have a good time! The ending is pretty messed up. The climax of the film is, basically "Terry", after vanquishing her brother in a lame sword fight, ends up getting possessed by the same unexplained dark force that had taken over him, and the movie ends on the totally creepy image of her just smiling this evil little smile right at the camera with her now "Exorcist-style demonic eyes. And even though like everything else in this flick it comes out kind of weak and haphazard, I like the message that great evil can lurk in anyone, that anyone unwary can through thought and deed wind up losing their very soul... I found it to be a very chilling final scene. Regardless though, horror films aren't for everyone, and this is definitely one for hardcore fans of the genre. I thought for what it was, it was a good effort. I'll see ya.

The Dread starts on the 12th October, 1986 as Mr & Mrs Brewer are found brutally murdered in their own house... Jump forward fifteen years & Teri Edwards (Sally Pressman) is told by her step-mom that she is adopted, wanting to find out about her own family Teri does some investigation & discovers that she was born Teri Brewer, her parents were murdered, she was adopted & the brother she never knew she had has been in a psychiatric institution for the past fifteen years after being accused of their parents murder. Teri decides to visit her brother Alex (J. Steadman) but it seems that Alex hasn't spoken all the time he has been incarcerated. As Teri visits brutal murders begin to happen...Edited, co-written & directed by Michael Spence one has to say that The Dread is terrible & it's as simple & straight forward as that. Amazingly three people are credited with the script, Spence, Casey Conlon & Karen C. O'Malley which quite frankly stuns me as I can't believe it takes three people to write something so simple, so predictable & just so downright rubbish as The Dread. I pretty much hate most modern low budget shot on a camcorder type horror & have very little good to say about it & a film such as The Dread merely reinforces why I dislike this sort of generic crap. There's no sort of coherent story, nothing is explained, the significance of the computer game isn't explained, why Alex turns into a monster isn't explained, why he doesn't speak for fifteen years isn't explained, why the murders just suddenly start up again isn't explained, why after a murder the local cops only send out two detectives isn't explained, why everyone insists on splitting up all the time isn't explained, why no-one thinks to just leave the place until five minutes before the end isn't explained, why Teri doesn't remember being adopted or her parents being murdered is never explained & how two teenagers can hide behind a wheelchair as an orderly walks past without being noticed isn't explained & quite frankly just lazy. The character's are awful, why would two teenagers want to break into a mental institution for fun for instance? The dialogue is awful, there's far too much running around in corridors doing nothing in particular & no-one ever does anything logical.Director Spense doesn't do much to improve the script, obviously working on a low budget The Dread is still a poor looking film. At least the filmmakers attempt to try & include some gore, it's not very good but there's a decapitated head, some splashed blood, a couple of mutilated bodies, someone is shot, someones heart is ripped out & that's about it. Also you cannot climb up the inside of a vertical ventilation shaft like they do, I don't care what anyone says. I mean they don't even hold on to anything, they just sort of push themselves up which is impossible. The monster isn't seen until the end & even then it doesn't look that great. The Dread certainly isn't scary & why are there no lights in this mental institution? Don't give me all that rubbish about the electricity being cut off either, I mean there's still enough electricity for Alex to play his computer game isn't there? The whole opening sequence is a rip-off of Halloween (1978) as a young boy kills members of his family, unfortunately that's where the comparison ends as The Dread is so cheap looking & lacking in any suspense or atmosphere.With a supposed budget of about $875,000 The Dread was low budget & it looks it too, there's not much else to say other than it looks cheap & nasty. According to the IMDb The Dread was filmed between 17th October & 5th November 2005 in Michigan although remained unreleased until 2007. The acting isn't great, horror fans should recognise Ellen Sandweiss as Cheryl from the classic The Evil Dead (1981) & she has aged very well & looks very similar to she did back then.The Dread is pretty dreadful, I know it's a cheap one-liner but it's perfectly apt & appropriate when used in conjunction with The Dread. Basically The Dread is terrible & a total mess of a film.

When i saw the cover for this movie i thought OMG this is going to be the scariest movie and goriest movie i have ever seen but Jesus Christ i have never seen a worse movie in my whole life. The acting is fine but the picture quality is like soap opera show quality and the effects are bad too and the storyline is probably the worse. you cant connect with the characters or anything. There is a horrible half sex scene which is pointless and the killer just plays video games there is no plot and you don't like properly get to meet the characters. And the mental hospital is sooo bad i cant stand it. the rooms have other doors in there and electricity boxes too. its like they made a movie for a school contest its so bad. and there are only a few characters as well and some of the patients just simply walk around the hospital and the killer costume design is the worst i have ever seen. its like he is dressed to go to a halloween dance party. the coat thing he wears is like what i would wear to school or something and he is wearing a mask which you could buy at your local supermarket. its not original but its not interesting. and in the final bossfight its like *jab* oh well hes dead and im him now OK then lets show the end credits now which go at 100km an hour.