Monday, May 3, 2010

Dread

Dread (2009)

I haven't seen all the 8 Films to Die For movies but I am going to declare Dread the best so far. It started off a little slow and had me a bit skeptical at first, but ended with such a bang that I have no other choice than to give it praise here.

Dread tells the story of 3 college kids out to make a documentary for one of their film classes. One of the three students has severe issues after witnessing the brutal murder of his parents as a child, and he comes up with the idea of documenting what people's darkest fears are. Deciding that the interviews are too tame, he sets out to actually put people into their scariest nightmare and says it's the next phase in their experiment. I know, the story sounds rather cliche and it is, but the execution was spot on with great acting, a phenomenal soundtrack, and superb character development.

As I mentioned, I was a skeptic at first. I felt like the beginning and middle were decent/good, but I was mostly focused on how Jackson Rathbone, the main character, really needed a haircut and shave. I'm sorry, you can be a good looking dude, but not without going to a salon stat. Besides the hair, I got a bit annoyed by the antagonist (the one setting up the experiments) because he's one of those characters that has OBVIOUS psychological issues and as a regular person you would never EVER continue to hang out with him, trust him, etc. etc. So when the main characters continue to interact with him, I tended to roll my eyes.

But once you get over that little bump, the last third of this film sets it apart from the cliched plot. There is one of the most gut-wrenching scenes I've seen in a long time... maybe ever (I don't want to ruin it here). As with the most successful of horrors, this is all psychological - no torture porn here! It's not the gore that gets you, it's the fact that you feel for the character. Phenomenal scene. Strong and dark ending (although it left me feeling rather unsatisfied/depressed). The last act of this film drove it to the finish line with me cheering. When the film was over and I was closing my eyes to sleep, I actually felt quite unsettled and even a tiny bit frightened. :)

Overall: 7.5/10
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Gore meter: 5/10
Scare meter: 5/10
Uncomfortable meter: 9/10

2 comments:

  1. I haven't seen any of them but really want to now!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Do it!
    It's a good time waster that you won't shoot yourself in the face regretting.

    ReplyDelete