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Dread
(Anthony DiBlasi, 2009)
Somewhat
sleepily paced by horror movie standards, Anthony DiBlasi’s
Dread adapts the Clive Barker short
story of the same name in a manner that respects the original work’s ghoulish
integrity but perhaps lacks for intensity. A bit too concerned with gore to
really grapple with the concept of dread, but too full of dialogue to be
genuinely thrilling, the movie seems more character-oriented than the average
torture porn movie, which is not an entirely good thing.
Things start
promisingly, as Dread introduces a
small group of graduate students who want to probe the psychological roots of
fear. They devise a series of experiments that entails interviewing unwitting
participants about their most traumatic experiences, hoping to learn what keeps
people awake at night. From the start, much is made of the psychological
instability of the fledgling scientists, and before long their relationships
tangle into a tawdry soap opera of hurt feelings and bruised egos.
After an hour
or so the experiment predictably goes terribly wrong and
Dread shifts from soft-core porn into
the realm of torture porn. The plot begins to mirror that of the
Saw franchise, except where Jigsaw,
the demented serial killer of those movies, devised metaphorical tortures to
serve as moral retribution, the tortures here are direct reminders of the
characters’ most unpleasant experiences. For a while, then,
Dread feels extremely cruel, which is
fitting, but the movie resolves just as it begins to gain momentum, ending with
something of a whimper.
Dread
is stylishly realized. DiBlasi makes the anonymous college town where the film
is set worth of the film’s title. The nearly abandoned house where the action
takes place seems an inevitable signpost for the trauma to come. The
foreshadowing, usually relayed through the characters’ nightmares, effectively
sets the tone. Thanks to all of this slick directorial work,
Dread’s most immediate shortcomings
only become evident in retrospect, when the shallowness of the film is laid
bare. While the movie is unfolding, however, both its poor acting and its
eventual lack of a satisfactory payoff scarcely seem to matter. 45 Jeremy Heilman 07.07.10
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