Writer(s): Andrea and Canepa
Starring: Ray Wise, Lin Shaye, Mick Cain, and Alexandra Holden
One of the fundamental drawbacks to our current state of media technology is also its biggest upside: that anyone can create, edit, and release anything that they want, at any given time. The Internet has opened the doors to allow anyone the opportunity to garner attention doing the things that they love, and that has especially held true in the film industry: on YouTube alone, there are 300 hours of video uploaded every single minute. If that's the case on just one site (granted, a pretty big site), then it's probably true that in that same time frame across the whole of the Internet, there is a lifetime's worth of videos added; pretty mind-boggling stuff. And in that media sea, it's an unfortunate reality that a lot of junk is going to rise to the top, just as a lot of great content will sink to the bottom.
The same goes for movies. In the past, it was mainly only legit studios that were able to peddle their content to the masses, but now anyone with a camera and a computer can download editing software and become an independent studio. That means for every inexplicable thing that catches on (Sharknado and its as-of-now three sequels rise immediately to mind), there are films like Dead End that fall through the cracks.
Now let's get one thing straight, right off the bat here: Dead End has plenty of fundamental flaws. The ending, which would have probably been shocking thirteen years ago when it debuted, is limp and predictable, especially as the trip wears on. It relies way too much on attempted humor, and most of it comes in the form of Richard, a sarcastic and annoying teenaged know-it-all, whose presence very quickly wears thin. (Why do otherwise serious movies always feel the need to lighten tension with stupid jokes...isn't an unbearable tension kind of the point?)
But what Dead End does well is what makes it a far more powerful film than it has any right to be. Shot for a meager $900,000 Dead End starts off in overly familiar territory, to the point that I almost immediately regretted giving it a shot. But then it breaks off down its own path and, in doing so, becomes quite an engaging little film, full of creepy moments and carried along by startlingly solid performances.
Frank and Laura Harrington are on their way to Laura's grandmother's house for Christmas Eve. They are joined by their children: smart-alecky teenager Richard (who is clearly played by a man in his twenties; in this case, 25-year-old Mick Cain), and daughter Marion, who is also accompanied by her boyfriend, Brad Miller. Frank has taken the exact same path to Laura's mother's house for the last twenty years, but this time decides to go a different route. In what could perhaps be an ominous sign, he falls asleep at the wheel and very nearly avoids crashing into an oncoming car, but this is just the beginning of their weird trip: Road signs mention places that don't exist, exits seem to be few and far between, and the family starts turning on each other.
But these problems become minor when Frank notices the “woman in white”, a young-ish woman carrying a baby that appears from time to time. And whenever she makes an appearance, bad things start happening. Will the family make it to granny's house in one piece, or will they all end up in the creepy black hearse that keeps following them around like a vulture, as if it knows something that they don't...
The premise is sparse, and almost stupidly so. But the writing/directing team of Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa manage to demonstrate a serious knack for getting under the audiences' skin by sticking to the “minimalist's horror model”, made popular by films like The Blair Witch Project: by keeping most of the gruesome moments offscreen, it forces our own minds to fill in the blanks. This is a tactic used by many low-budget horror films out of absolute necessity, and is why most of them are more effective than big budget counterparts—once the monster is shown, chances are it will be scary to some, but not to all. By allowing the audience to visualize the outcome themselves, it can be “personalized” to each person's mind, as it's human nature to imagine the most gruesome outcome imaginable. It's a wonder more horror films don't latch on to this well-known horror tip.
Aside from Richard and Brad, who rely on hackneyed character traits (Richard the sarcastic teenager who hates the world, and Brad the cool and confident stoner-jock), Andrea and Canepa up the ante with the rest of the characters, delivering well-rounded people who are each harboring dark secrets that will come out during the course of the night. Some of the reveals are rather sudden and ineffectual, but kudos must be given to Ray Wise (perhaps best remembered as Leland Palmer in both the old “Twin Peaks”, and reprising his role in the future “Twin Peaks”) and Lin Shaye, who are absolutely astounding as the parents. Each one is required to run through a wide range of emotions, getting more and more tense as the situation becomes increasingly dire, and they pull it off admirably. I didn't feel like the switches in mood were always justified, or felt realistic, but those complaints fall more on the directors; in terms of doing their jobs, they both go above and beyond, lending credibility to a film that easily could have faltered without it. Through them, there are moments of heartbreak and sadness that are legitimately poignant, when they just as easily could have gone the other way.
The filmmaking tandem do break a little of their own minimalism rules by throwing in a tacky ending that insinuates a continuing cycle of death, while revealing a little too much about the mysterious hearse that stalked them that night. The night scenes with it are eerie and dreamlike, but seeing it the way we do at the end undoes a great deal of the unexplained mystery, taking it from supernatural, to plain and ordinary in just a few short seconds of screen time. There's also a post-ending ending during the end credits that goes for one more emotional gut punch...I honestly found the idea of it quite impactful, but the delivery (thanks to two clearly inexperienced actors) leaves much to be desired.
Somehow, this movie has grossed over $70 million in DVD sales, which is kind of odd, considering I don't know a single person that has ever heard of it; on those grounds it seems incorrect to refer to it as “underrated”. Either way, Dead End is the perfect antithesis of most Hollywood movies, favoring rich characterization and an element of mystery over the computerized “in-your-face” style of most California tripe, and also remains a compelling example of effective low-budget storytelling.
RATING: 7/10
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