Long Time Dead

Review by Clint Morris

Dripping in mozzarella, smelling like yesterday's news and with its only aspiration seeming to be the new Blair Witch 2, this Brit horror fiasco, Long Time Dead, would like you to believe it's the latest in the long line of cutting- edge horror movies.

The Urban Legend, I know what you did last summer and Scream clones that the later part of last decade became so renowned for, is just about where the movie is pitched.

Instead, it succeeds as something totally different... A repulsively riotous hack-job, that not even Troma's head of acquisitions would sit through.

Starring a cast of relative unknowns – all expect American actor Lukas Haas, forever known as the boy from 1985's Witness – the film centres on a group of English slackers who decide to summon up a spirit on a ouija board.

By film's end, they will have all have been sliced 'n' diced by the inexorable demon among them, in this case Djinn, and be partly accountable for putting the audience to sleep.

It's amazing that studios think people still want to see this rubbish. If you're going to make a horror movie... Make a horror movie. Make it bloodcurdling, make it probable, give us over-the-top characters and monsters, but intermingle it with half-an-ounce of stateliness.

For the majority of Long Time Dead, you'll either restlessly squirm in your seat from boredom or scoff at the film's terribly ham-fisted writing.

First-time helmer, Michael Adams, has obviously tried to make the film enjoyable, but instead of borrowing the odd regurgitated constituent of horror movies past, he's ripped out every page in the 'Horror Movie 101' manual and copied the thing, frame by frame.

Everything from the cheesy music, to the dialogue, and even the uninspired killings – which make these type of films worthwhile most of the time – smell of late-night cable rubbish, leaving only two questions that need to be answered: 1) Who greenlighted this picture? 2) Where did it all go wrong for the floppy-eared kid from Witness?

1 out of 5

Long Time Dead
Australian release: Thursday September the 11th
Cast: Joe Absolom, Tom Bell, Lara Belmont, Melanie Gutteridge, Lukas Haas, James Hillier.
Director: Marcus Adams.
Website: Click here

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