Dead and Gone

As previous reviews have stated, I get what they mean completely. This film definitely had the qualities of a mystifying Lynchion that seeps in through the cracks that is Evil Dead 2's cabin hysteria and horror!

I quite enjoyed the advanced coloration and distortion of madness and reality behind the camera angles. If this was not enough to grip your collar in, there were plenty of hilarious but grotesquely distasteful characters that localize the bumpkin bliss! A pair of bumbling, troublesome brothers; a careless cop vixen; the perverted televangelist and more!

It was murder on moonshine!

On paper "Dead and Gone" truly sounded like an entertaining and potentially imaginative new zero-budgeted little horror flick. The basic plot description is original, the remote forestry settings are marvelous (with echoes of "The Evil Dead" and David Lynch's "Twin Peaks") and the trailer clearly indicated a mixture of black comedy, splatter and psychedelic plot twists. Unfortunately, however, the finished product is an utter mess of a film that turned out boring and ridicule instead of inventive and compelling. It's difficult to point out what exactly went wrong here, but debuting writer Harry Shannon and inexperienced director Yossi Sasson obviously lost their grip on the screenplay right from the beginning. The intended effect of 'is all this happening for real or just occurring inside the protagonist's mentally unstable mind' is never reached and Quinten Jones' performance is far too weak for anyone to care about his gradual descent into madness. He depicts a lowlife actor married to a much older wife who's in a permanent state of coma following a plastic surgery gone awry. The wife's family refused to include Jack in the testament, so he saw no other option than to kidnap her body and hide in a secluded mountain cottage. This happens to be the same cottage where an entire family was brutally slain nearly forty years ago and, on top of that, the closest neighbors are either homosexually perverted delivery boys or desperate sex-craving female deputies. As Jack slowly loses his mind, his wife awakes from her coma and mocks him. Eventually he has no other choice than to pull the plug on her, but the mean-spirited shrew keeps coming back in further evolved states of decay. "Dead and Gone" is primarily a very boring film! The story repeatedly follows Jack's irrelevant and pointless daily routines of running through the woods, draw hideous designs on his porch, chop wood and bicker with his chain-smoking dead wife. The cottage's sinister past is hardly even referred to anymore after the opening credits and Jack's interactions with the deranged locals seemingly just serve as time-filling footage. There are so many other interesting aspects that remain unprocessed, like Jack's liaison with the family attorney or the bizarre war traumas of sexy deputy Kate. "Dead and Gone" features nothing even remotely resembling an horrific atmosphere or nightmarish imagery. Usually, low-budgeted independent horror flicks like this have to rely on grainy cinematography and/or deeply perverted insinuations, but this movie looks and feels as it was made by freshly graduated film students who wanted to do everything nicely by the book. The make-up effects are often downright pathetic and evoke laughter instead of frights. If this was meant as homage to the original "The Evil Dead", then Sam Raimi definitely shouldn't feel honored. The acting performances are miserable, with the one notable exception of Felissa Rose as Jack's attorney. Fans of nonsensical Z-grade horror smut will certainly recognize her odd face, as she was the one and only Angela from "Sleepaway Camp" in 1983.

David Lynch meets Evil Dead 2 with some Deliverance thrown in? Trying to make sense of this film is like trying to find something worthwhile in the last eight years - it isn't going to happen.

If you are looking for typical horror with breasts and gore, it has that, although the gore is more Japanese style with the pumping blood after heads roll. You will, of course, enjoy the display by Gillian Shure (Disturbia) as the Constable.

But what the film really contains is a story of madness. Did Jack (Quentin Jones) bring the madness with him when he took his comatose wife (Kathrine Bates) to a haunted cabin, or did the ghosts of the cabin infect him to the point where he killed and killed again? It may take a couple of watchings to be sure and, even then, I doubt you will be. Good performances by Quentin Jones and Robert Herrick.

Fans will be surprised by the cameos: Kyle Gass (Tenacious D), Marilyn Ghigliotti (Clerks), Zack Ward (Freddy vs. Jason) and Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp).

I just finished watching this and I must comment on how well this film worked. I walked into it with no expectations, and walked away feeling like, finally, there's some hope for the horror genre yet. Even with a relatively low budget, the movie had good story, decent acting, gore, and none of the generic cliché moments that plague today's teeny horror films. With a nod or two, some purists will see the links with films such as Amityville Horror, The Shining, Poltergeist, Evil Dead 2 & even the Troma classic Mother's Day. If you are a fan of the brilliant style of horror from the mid 80's, you will not be disappointed in the styling, story, and cinematography of this film.

This sucked, big time.

Sock puppeteering is not acceptable in art. In other words, don't toot your own horn pretending to not be associated with, and in this case, the hack-write of this piece of trash.

This film was forced, the acting dry.

Done by people who just want to build up a resume.

Why build a resume of junk? Just to have a sheet of paper to point to? Or a page on IMDb? I love B films and never take them seriously, but trying to tell people to not take it too seriously after all the bad reviews is as transparent as the plot and story.

Stick to for-the-love internet zines. That way all your buddies can pat you on the back and make you feel like you have talent.