The Dead Outside

Completely derivative, and not very rewarding. Although the talent of the filmmakers involved is evident, they sabotage themselves by working with completely empty content. Badly written, badly acted and repetitive, the film failed to justify its running time. THE DEAD OUTSIDE works for about 15 minutes, after which its lack of momentum makes it hard to sit through. I suspect it would probably have made a good short film, however.

It has been mentioned that the film "expects a lot from its audience", but this isn't quite true. There was far too much exposition in some scenes. The characters and their stories are simply not very interesting. It's a common thing to see in an indie, but the extent to which bad acting can weigh down even a good script *cannot* be overstated. I'm sure THE DEAD OUTSIDE will be the cast and crew's ticket to bigger/better things, but as a cinema experience it simply is not up to par.

I'll try and contextualize my score by listing scores for the last couple of indies I've seen:

RULE OF THREE (Eric Shapiro). Good acting for an indie. Reasonably good Script. Terribly shot, terrible music. 5/10

INK (Jamin Winans). Some pretty good ideas, hugely ambitious and elaborate production. Weak execution and bad acting. 5/10

SHALLOW GROUND (Sheldon Wilson). A bloody mess. Nonsensical plot. An exercise in pointlessness. 3/10

THE DEAD OUTSIDE (Kerry Anne Mullaney). A technically competently lensed film, but lacking any real focus or originality. Badly acted, boring script, repetitive sound design. 4/10

Six months after a horrible virus has decimated the United Kingdom and turned its victims into crazed zombies, a young man named "Daniel" (Alton Milne) drives to a deserted house in Scotland to take refuge for the night. However, when he wakes up the next morning, he finds himself staring down the barrel of a rifle held by a woman by the name of "April" (Sandra Louise Douglas). Realizing that this woman means business, he quickly apologizes and, to his relief, she allows him to stay on one more day before hitting the road again. Although he finds that she is both angry and aloof, he manages to convince her to allow him to stay a little longer and its during this time that they begin to understand each other a little better due in large part to the personal tragedies each of them have recently been through. Unfortunately, things become much more complicated when another uninfected person named "Kate" (Sharon Osdin) shows up and changes the dynamic to a degree that neither of them expected. Now, although the overall plot was hardly unique, I thought that this film might have some potential based, in part. On where it was filmed. Sadly, this was not to be the case as the director (Kerry Anne Mullaney) failed to give any of the actors a coherent script and instead chose to use a series of garbled flashbacks to reveal key aspects. Needless to say, I don't think this was a good decision by any stretch of the imagination. Not only that, but the ending was much too vague and could have used considerable clarification as well. That being said, I don't consider this to be a good film and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

I went into this film knowing nothing about it but the description in Netflix. It starting out promising with an eerie, engaging introduction of the main characters and their situation. The mood was intense and the images surreal. However, at the 45 minute mark, I started to lose my patience as the plot stubbornly refused to progress. After an hour, finishing the film had become a gauntlet and done only out of spite. The ominous music cues kept promising something that was never delivered. The actors may have uttered some interesting lines but if they did I certainly couldn't understand them. I like a grim, bleak glimpse of the future as much as the next guy but the storytellers are still responsible for propelling the action forward whether it is physical or psychological. And one final note on the soundtrack: As noted elsewhere, the soundtrack drowned out the dialogue throughout much of the film. No matter how loud I put it, I couldn't make out the actors lines because the music was louder. Regardless of budget, that is inexcusable. Ultimately, a nice try that wore out its welcome half way through.

The first feature from music video director Kerry Anne Mullaney exists in world even bleaker and farther north than 28 Days Later, and a little deeper inside the art house. The director makes a benefit of the lack of finance, with gritty visuals and an excellent performance from Sandra Louise Douglas (in her first role), as April, a girl soaked in horror, whose anger may have more meaning than mere teenage angst. The two lead characters exist on opposite sides of a moral divide—Daniel, a good man who still sees the infected as human beings, is haunted (it seems literally in a couple of scenes), by what he couldn't bring himself to do, whereas April shoots on sight, and is almost catatonic from the things she has seen, the people she has lost, and those she has killed. Shot in two weeks, and self-financed on a micro budget, which is hardly an issue, the production team of Mullaney and producer/co-scripter/cameraman Kris R Bird (who together created promos for Drive-By Argument and Cosmic Rough Riders), demand a lot from their audience, which is refreshing in an age where the horror film seems designed to evoke nothing beyond revulsion, and their debut shows immense promise. Add another strong, intelligent team to the new league of British horror auteurs. Stick through the final titles to hear the excellent "Evacuate" by indie upstarts The Boxer Rebellion.

Bear in mind, if you haven't watched this movie, that we're talking about a mean, low-budget, in your face little movie. You won't have seen the actors before (unless you know them personally) and there is nothing "fancy" to be found here, neither in the camera work, nor in the story department.

But it works for the movie. Not bloody, but suspenseful and with a dramatic story, that tries to stay as real as it can be (with a story like that). The actors do a good job, carrying the job, which plays mostly at one location. It might be slow at times (or might seem not moving story-wise), but it really is good, if you let yourself immerse in it.