Deadwood Park

This is a very low budget, shot on video supernatural "mystery" about a man who returns to his hometown to solve the mystery of his twin's disappearance when he was a child. He teams up with a local girl interested in the small town's history (of unsolved child murders), and together they begin poking their noses into things the town (well, the sheriff) wants forgotten.

The only other reviewer recommended Deadwood Park to "serious fans of intelligent scary movies." He or she must be on crack. Or more likely associated with the production. Whichever the case, you tricked me into watching your movie, so congratulations.

The good: excellent locations, nice use of lanterns to light scenes, decent b/w WWII reenactments, interesting left turn ending that I actually enjoyed.

The bad: I can live with wooden acting (of which there is a good amount) but what kills this movie completely is the dog-slow coma-inducing ZZZZZZ pacing. Shots go on too long, and when the movie should be jumping ahead to the next scene, we get a billion cutaways to scenery. Mix this pace with the out-of-place flashbacks and it's snooze city. Plot hole: in the end of the movie the main character acts on information that we as viewers learned through a flashback but he has no way of knowing himself.

Calling this movie a mystery, as some have done, is a bit misleading. Until the answer to who (or what) killed the kids is revealed, there is no way for us as viewers to have figured it out.

It's obvious that the director has seen a few horror films. (Evil dead, The Changeling, etc.) I liked the last 15 minutes of the film, but this is not a good movie and you will regret renting it unless you were involved in its creation. I even doubt its value as a "so bad it's good" rental because until the end it's just dull.

Oh, and if you're looking for "intelligent horror" that's actually scary, check out the Korean film, A Tale of Two Sisters. Now that's a movie.

I read some of the reviews so I wasn't expecting much but they intrigued me. Well shot, interesting story. Acting could have been better but worth checking out.

watched a good one tonight, the first for the usual Halloween movie fest. Wasn't expecting that much, but "Deadwood Park" was very entertaining for such a low budget indie movie. Not much graphic violence, but just enough, and a little gore. But, great script, good acting, and well done. Highly recommended.

If you are a serious fan of intelligent scary movies, you frequently find yourself wading through Luke-warm to unbelievably bad dreck, looking for the real gems in the genre.

*This* is the kind of movie you're hoping for.

_Deadwood Park_ is a great example of personal passion, creativity, cinematic technique and a strong story, completely overcoming the lack of a big budget. It's thrilling to watch a classic style pulled off with this much heart and soul. Entertaining and engrossing.

On a micro-budget, the filmmakers have built a slow-burn, atmospheric ghost story with some truly harrowing suspense and chills. Making use of great use of locations, this movie is beautifully shot and deliberately paced. It takes its time, but delivers some remarkable and evocative sequences - from a gas-lamp search of an abandoned second floor, to a harrowing WWII battle flashback (filmed with local re-en-actors). A moody ambient score and effective sound-design give these scenes exactly the bite they need, and near-brilliant use of composition.

All of this would be for nothing without a story worth telling, and this is a place too many indies fall down on. But not here. I can't tell you how delightful it is to be halfway through a movie and _not_ have a clue where it is going. And it turned out that even my suspicions didn't guess the half of it. There is a big story being told here. A smart, literate, novel-like structure full of striking details and themes. Historical flashbacks and visual devices that I found very rewarding. While some of the dialogue is un-remarkable, it's not annoying and seems to support the common-place feeling of the place and the characters.

The only thing I felt detracted were a few performances. The wordless suspense scenes are completely effective, but I found a couple of the actors to be unconvincing in scenes involving dialogue. I know they were going for very low-key, naturalistic performances, but IMHO the movie would have benefited from stronger screen presence.

Still, this is terrific work, an inspiring movie for Indie-filmmakers, and *essential* viewing if you're a fan of old-style ghost stories in a Bava-esquire vein. I strongly recommend _Deadwood Park_.

Deadwood Park looks promising to start with. The setting is great, a dilapidated town with an old abandoned fairground, a spooky little church and the protagonists childhood home which has been abandoned for some time. Sure the acting is a bit wooden but there's some interesting scenery and a bit of tension with the local sheriff to keep you entertained. Strange things start happening so you are all geared up for a ghost story in this creepy setting.

But then, all of a sudden the writers seem to give up on the story they've been building up. Out go the spooky ghost bits and child abductions and in comes something which just doesn't fit at all. From then on the film drags and the ending is a meaningless shrug of the shoulders. Hey guys we filled the running time, thanks for watching.

I really think that if they had stuck to one story and maybe allowed the characters to express some sort of surprise at the ghostly goings on rather than being totally unmoved by them this could have been a great little movie. As it stands it's halfway there but not really worth your time. I just can't believe they squandered the great locations, which really are the stars in this one.