Review #315: Dead End (2003)
The Twelve Slays of Christmas #1 - Dead End (2003)
Well, we're back! And this time it's with a horror film I've seen many times. Dead End is a story about a dysfunctional family driving down a secluded road at night on their way to a Christmas party, when things start to get... creepy. The road goes on forever without any turns or crossroads, they keep passing the same landmarks, the only other car they ever see is an ominous black car that shows up when something tragic happens. There's a bit more to it than that, but the movie takes some twists and turns (unlike the road, amirite) that I really think are best experienced while watching it for the first time.
I don't think this is a perfect movie, so I'll get the negatives out of the way right now: the writing in here is pretty ham-fisted and as unsubtle as can be. The characters all hate each other, and are clearly all one unfortunate event away from blurting out long-kept secrets. The son in this family is incredibly annoying and is not only needlessly antagonistic to everyone else, but he apparently brought along a porn magazine on this family drive just in case they got a flat tire and he had an opportunity to sneak off into the trees to smoke weed and jerk off (which was an opportunity he was all too eager and prepared for). Several characters in this movie keep waffling back and forth between being the only sane person in the car and being batshit crazy, which is really jarring when you look back at the story structure as a whole. For most of the film, none of the characters feel like real characters; they feel pretty wooden and inconsistent.
But, that aside, I think this is a great film.
This movie is ENTIRELY creepy vibes and atmosphere. My wife described it as "feeling like a bad nightmare you can't wake up from" and that is 100% the atmosphere this film has, and I guarantee that was intended by the filmmakers. Most of the character inconsistencies and bad writing can easily be papered over by some of the revelations that come late in this film, but even if they can't, I'll easily overlook them in favor of just drinking in the solitude, the uncomfortableness, and the slow creeping dread that you feel from the beginning until the end. The ominous black car, the abandoned "ranger station", the many overhead shots of the road stretching off into infinite darkness surrounded on every side by an endless forest- so many parts of this movie are utterly terrifying to see on-screen, and even worse when you think of them next time you're making your own drive down a dark country road and you can't remember exactly how long ago you saw the last intersection.
Dead End isn't a perfect movie by any means. But it tugs at a fear that so many people have had (myself included) and gets the feeling of that fear across perfectly in a way no other movie quite matches.
Overall Rating: 7/10 Miles to the Coast
Hidden Message: At the very end of the end credits, we're given the following message: "To everyone still with us at the end of theses credits, thank you ! God bless you. You sure do like Movies !" [sic]
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