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The Harrington family - father Frank (Ray Wise), mother Laura (Lin Shaye), whiney pot-smoking son Richard (Mick Cain), psychiatrist daughter Marion (Alexandra Holden) and her boyfriend Brad (Billy Asher) - are travelling late Christmas Eve to get to Laura's mothers for Christmas. Frank, in his infinite wisdom, has decided to take a shortcut down a road surrounded by woods that they've never been down before. And we all know what happens when a decision like that is taken. They come across a young woman in white who is catatonic, bloodied and holding a baby. Deciding they have to help, they set off for the local hospital, which is when things get freeeeaky.

That's all you're getting from me plot-wise, because the success of 'Dead End' relies on you knowing as little as possible about it before you see it. Going in unaware, with your eyes open is the best way for it to work its eerie and foreboding atmosphere on you. It's probably best to decsribe 'Dead End' as one-third 'The Hitcher' and two-thirds 'The Blair Witch Project', because instead of being a gore-fest with the requisite card (or knife) carrying psycho, it relies more on psychological horror to get those hairs standing up on the back of our necks. And stand up they do, at frequent intervals. It's more like 'Blair Witch' in that it sets up an unpleasant scene and doesn't let it get any better, instead spiralling further down into a clammy sense of unease whilst slowly making you nibble your fingernails nervously. The wood settings, the lack of complete answers and the haunting figure of a woman all suggest that this would have been a much better sequel than 'Book of Shadows', and the film overall has the hypnotic quality of a particularly vivid nightmare.

Directors Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Capea show an obvious knowledge of what makes rural horror like this particularly, and show a real flair for imagination and unsettling visuals. Gore and blood is rarely seen, but is more than made up for by brief glimpses of the watching woman in the woods or the casual use of a baby carriage. And they work the dark location of a deserted road in the middle of the night superbly.

The cast are effective, without being too eye-catching. Wise and Holden make for a decent father-daughter pairing, whilst Shaye gets steadily funnier the more demented she gets as the film progresses. It helps that Andrea and Capea don't just dive straight into the horror, they take the time to set up the family dynamic and have knack for writing naturalistic, squabbling family dialogue without making the characters irritating.

But there are a couple of things that knock a star off the rating here. For all its effective atmosphere, there's no truly great scare to be had and it rarely rises above creepy (although it does sustain a constantly creepy tone), and unfortunately, like any film that sets out to constantly intrigue, answers will have to be eventually given. And when they are, they inevitably disappoint. The ending here is much more clever than you initially give it credit for, which will then make you go back and piece the clues together that the film gave you, until you go "Ah, of course, so that's why...". But when the rest of the film is promising to be much more unique and daring, it's a shame that it turns out to be nothing more than an extended 'Twilight Zone' episode.

Nonetheless, 'Dead End' is a promising piece of work indeed. The ending wraps things up in a way that would be too neat for some, but don't let that over-ride the memory of the other 75 minutes which have a creepy and highly effective atmosphere all of their own. It's a film that seems to be destined for a life on video or a film that you'll catch late one night on tv and be glued to until the next morning when you ask everyone else if they saw it. And like an urban legend no-one else will have ever seen it. Don't let 'Dead End' disappear like that and, yes, don't watch it the next time you have to make an over-night drive.

link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=11130&reviewer=293
originally posted: 03/05/05 01:18:02
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