Dead of Night 2012 - REVIEW

I swear if I do not get an original short movie or feature film come across my desk soon I am going fuckin scream.  Seriously, I know there are movies out there that have similarities but how hard is it to come up with some thing on your own that you did not totally copy from another film.  I am not going to mention which movie this one mirrors till my I give my thoughts about this one.  I am sure once you read the synopsis it will be evident and easy to figure out.

There is a serial killer (Preston Taub) on the loose that is obsessed with identity.  Not just his victims identities but destroying them like they never existed.  It is up to the FBI profiler Cyrus Vendelin (Steven Vujic) to put a stop to this madman.  In order to do this Cyrus must think like the killer to try and get in his head and stop him before his bodycount rises.

This short film of 30 mins is a monumental mess.  The story is very unstable and jumps all over the place.  If you did not figure it out from the description this short very much resembles the feature film starring Angelina Jolie entitled Taking Lives.  This is totally not original and isn't even a good take on the idea of Taking Lives. I guess my biggest gripe about this movie is that in my opinion it's not even what I consider horror.  It is more of a crime drama and a horrible one at that.  Just because part of the story is about a serial killer does not mean you can instantly classify this as horror.

Now that we have gotten my gripes about the story out of the way lets move on to the acting.  There is no way anyone in this film has ever acted before.  Every single person in this film gives an absolutely terrible performance.  To be in a movie you do not have to be a professional actor (it helps) but you have to have some kind of talent.  If you are looking for a well acted short then look somewhere else!

Finally, we come to the look of the movie and the effects.  Well I wish I could say something positive here but again it's pretty bad.  The film looks horrible and the effects don't look good at all.  If really is important in independent horror to make sure at least the sound and the effects look good.  The way it looks now really sucks.  The only thing I will give props for is that they are making the special edition of the DVD available in Black and White.  That is pretty cool, sometimes B&W can add a little something to it.  Especially when the color version looks so bad.  This is available on Amazon Instant at the moment but I would say save you money for something else.  Stay twisted everyone!