Damned by Dawn

I saw Damned by Dawn on DVD and thought it was a fun horror film and shows what can be achieved by a group of film makers with a great deal of get up and go.

Some of the other user reviews here are mean in my opinion. This is clearly a labor of love by a group of film makers who really don't deserve a beat up for wanting to make films like their Hammer House of Horror heroes - which they achieve wonderfully here with all the spooky atmosphere you'd expect.

I think Indie film makers in particular will enjoy watching what has been achieved. Watch the behind the scenes, it's fantastic and shows what a fun time making the film must have been.

8 out of 10

One factor for any good horror movie is that is must be atmospheric. However, the makers of Damned by Dawn take the word 'atmospheric' to mean 'foggy.' The film is about a young couple who return to their family home in the foggiest part of Australia to see a dying relative. However, a banshee pops out of the fog and causes brutal havoc.

Now, I read some of the other reviews before I watched this and, I have to say, they kind of lower your expectations. But, for the first third of the movie, I had to wonder whether they were talking about the same film. I thought it was actually quite good. It had a nice (foggy) set-up and some potential.

Then came the CGI. Not only are CGI baddies imposed on us, but also, if the cast happen to be running through a non-foggy area, CGI fog is added (and it's really bad CGI fog too!).

The one dimensional characters just about manage to act their parts and the banshee's screaming is pretty creepy, plus there's some good gore (when you can see it through the fog), but, overall, I found myself eventually agreeing with the other reviews.

It may not be the worst film ever made (not while Michael Bay's Transformers franchise is still on a roll), but it's definitely not the best. Unless it happens to be on and you feel like a so-so horror flick, don't bother paying to watch this.

Damned by Dawn (2009)

I like the first half of the movie better , then the second half .

for a low budget movie, it has some really good spooky scenes in the first 40 minutes, Ruby did not take long to get started.

After the halfway mark that's when the movie changed, , with a number of dreams and in this movie which are annoying.

I just could not get warmed to the main lead , I found him somewhat annoying also I don't think the script with all that perfect for some scenes.

And the effect at the end were really bad

I am going to give this movie 4 out of 10

This movie is about a couple, Claire and Paul, who go to visit her relatives outback (it's an Australian movie) somewhere. In the course of their visit, the grandmother, who is very old and ill, tells Claire that she doesn't have much time remaining and entrusts her with a valuable urn. Claire doesn't want to hear such talk but the grandmother continues and tells her we all gotta go sometime (this is true folks) -but that she wasn't worried because "the lady of sorrows" -she who bawls for the dead (actually, they more poetically used "wails" but being a wise-ass I couldn't resist) -would oversee her final journey. As well, she tells Claire that no one should harm the bawling lady (there I go again) or interfere. At this point you can guess what happens: one of them unwittingly did something to the bawling woman and unhappy consequences follow.

This movie, in my ever so humble opinion, is overall not a bad movie. The creepiest part unfortunately happens in the first quarter or so of it. So what went wrong after that? "Flying skeletons". Say what???. You heard me, folks. Someone had the bright idea of injecting FLYING SKELETONS in this thing. The effect of this was to make the movie seem a little silly, a little retro, and a little cheap, and therefore to negate or offset a lot of the genuine creepiness it began with. Folks (I think you will agree with me), there is no way in the world flying skeletons are going to freak anyone out; not in this day and age. These days, this is something that you would put in a horror comedy which this was not intended to be.

Notwithstanding the above, this is generally not a bad movie. It just lost it's way to further real supernatural creepiness in the early go with the introduction of the skeletons and became more of a "monster" or "creature" movie, of sorts, even though they were supposed to be ghosts. So while much was lost if you wanted to be supernaturally creeped out, there was still creature horror and suspense. And in additional defense of what was not a bad effort, let me say that there are some movies that are today considered cult horror classics that had skeletons in them that looked no better than these, but at least they had the good sense not to make them airborne. Love, Boloxxxi.

The first thing that came into my mind, when I was watching this was "Evil Dead". Don't get me wrong, this is more glossy and has for better or worse CGI effects in it (most seem to mind, because quite frankly, they are not really that good). But the overall feeling I got, was the same as with Evil Dead. I'm not sure if that was intended or if it was just some button that got pushed with me.

I can tell you that I enjoyed most of the first half of it. It got really silly towards the end, which almost ruined it for me, but I still was entertained enough to like the movie overall. I am of course in the minority here and you probably should read another comment if you are not sure, if you should watch it. Don't mind the CGI though, because it will take you out of the movie.

Not great, but a nice little spooky picture.