Review #70: Dead Shack (2017)

This review was originally written in October 2019.

October Horror Movie Review #18: Dead Shack

I have strong thoughts about this film, but I'm having trouble putting them into the right words.

I'll start with the synopsis: A teen boy and his best friend's (?) dysfunctional family go on vacation out in the country, but their vacation is cut short when the neighbor turns out to be harboring a gaggle of zombies. Hilarity ensues.

(Maybe not that last part. Except maybe yes.) Here's the biggest problem I had with this film:

I can't remember the last time I've seen a movie try so hard to be funny (even movies in the comedy genre). On one hand this movie is partly a competently-shot zombie/slasher film; on the other hand, every single person on-set must have been told there would be a laugh track or something. EVERYONE is mugging for the camera at EVERY opportunity. Every other line is clearly meant to be a joke (and it all sounds scripted, so it wasn't just the actors given freedom to riff). I can tell each and every time a writer typed out a line and said, "Ha! GOLDEN!" Without exaggeration most of this film could have been shot as a multi-camera sitcom with a live studio audience and not a letter of the script would need to be changed.

Just as a fun exercise, here's an actual exchange from one of the scenes of this movie (almost word-for-word) except I've added in stage direction:

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[Boy has been awkwardly flirting with Girl.]

Girl: You're adorable. But weird.

[Audience laughs. Girl exits stage left.]

Boy [to himself]: Adorable is good, right?

[Camera pans right. We see Brother is laying on the bed, having watched the whole exchange.]

Brother: No. You blew it.

[Audience laughs.]

Brother: Oh, and I got dibs on this bed.

[Audience laughs. Acoustic bass solo into commercial break.]

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I honestly don't know why this bothers me as much as it does; some of my favorite horror films are also funny. But this one is TRYING SO VERY HARD. At least two characters in this film can't make it through a single line without cracking a joke, including when the situation and even the content of their lines is meant to be serious. I'm fine with jokes, I'm fine with humor, but for the love of god, READ THE ROOM. Even in comedy films there's a time and place for a joke; jokes aren't meant to be wedged literally everywhere that there is room for a word to be said.

Maybe if any of it was actually funny I would feel differently? I don't know.

Aside from the constant jokes there's another big problem I have with this film: It's yet another movie where it all happened because the protagonists made a series of incredibly stupid decisions. Upon first discovering the neighbor drugging and killing a couple townies, one character (the wise-cracking brother) decides to break a window by throwing a rock to get her attention as they run away. This is an incredibly stupid idea- and the characters call him out on this- and they stand there, stationary, arguing about it, for about ten seconds, until the evil neighbor has completely exited her house and has seen them all standing there. If she hadn't seen them, there would have been no movie- they would have run home, called the cops or whatever, and then the problem would be taken care of. But we have one character deliberately draw her attention, and then we have all of the characters just stand around so she can see who knows about her transgression. If the rock hadn't been thrown for no reason, the movie would be over. If the characters had continued to run away instead of standing in one spot for no reason, the movie would be over. Could they not come up with a more organic reason for her to come after the main characters?

And for that matter, ONE CALL TO THE POLICE would have ended this movie instantly. There was no cutting of the phone line, there was no attempt to call foiled by a lack of signal- they just never tried calling the police. One time it's mentioned but nobody actually does it. The killer even acknowledges that the police don't know about her murdering people- they could have fed in a line about how the cops know but they're in on it, or something, but the writers didn't do that. A single cop driving up would have immediately seen the dozen cars sitting outside this single woman's house (belonging to all those townies and drifters that have gone missing) and the entire thing would have been over. It's so common to hand-wave these issues away in horror films; this one didn't even bother, presumably because the writers were too busy coming up with one-liners for the characters to say while they were peeing.

The action was competent and the film looked good, but the tone felt completely incongruous and I don't understand what they were going for. I can't in good conscience say I liked this film and the more I think about it the angrier I get.

I don't recommend this one.

Overall rating: 3/10

Last Final Minor Gripe: I have no clue what the title of this movie is referring to. Once or twice they refer to the killer's home as a "cabin" and maybe even a "shack", but it's not a cabin or a shack, it's a large well-maintained country house.