Saturday 22 October 2011

Dread (2009) Dir: Anthony DiBlasi


Psychological horror is what we have here.

The plot:
Four media college students begin work on a project to study the nature of fear. Interviewing subjects, the project seems to be going well until one of their number, Quaid, flies off the handle when an interview subject lies to them about a past trauma. Enraged, Quaid smashes up the recording equipment.
Distanced now from the rest of the group, Quaid decides to continue by himself, though now his thoughts turn to the nature of dread itself and, to conduct his research, he needs live victims.....

Though intelligent in premise and execution, this is just a wee bit flat and sterile.
Well made, certainly for the budget, this is a movie that seems almost afraid to be labelled as horror, the director clearly working with the idea that his film is above all of that silliness, which is a shame as, frankly, what this really needed was a dose of the twisted and sadistic.
Exploring some interesting themes, identity foremost amongst them, there are solid enough ideas here, so it's a touch disappointing that the end product feels so damned clinical.
Not sure if I'd recommend this, but I can't say that it's no good either.
Average fodder, then.

3 out of 5

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