Watching “Dead Before Dawn” try to be funny is like going in to a third rate haunted house in the sticks on Halloween. It’s nice you’re trying really hard, but you really aren’t doing what you intend to. “Dead Before Dawn” tries to be many things, and one of them is a comedy. While it did elicit genuine laughs from me sporadically it manages to miss more than it hits. In fact by the end, the joke went on almost way too long. I was pretty relieved it ended or else I was afraid I’d begin to hate it.
Devin Bostick plays Casper, an easily rattled safety freak who is still reeling from the death of his father. When tasked with caring for his grand father’s occult shop the night he receives a big award, Casper tries to impress his high school crush Charlotte by showing her the skull topped vase that holds the ashes of an evil spirit. Accidentally dropping it, his group of friends concoct a goofy curse mocking the entity within, in an effort to help Casper relax. Little do they know, the curse has worked and everyone they meet eyes with commits suicide and rises from the dead as a Zombie Demon. They have until dawn to reverse the curse or else they’ll all be damned for eternity. “Dead Before Dawn” garners a fun cast of horror performers including Romero regular Devin Bostick as the likable Casper, and Brandon Jay MacLaren as his best friend prone to heroism.
Martha MacIsaac is also adorable as the love interest Charlotte. I was never sure if “Dead Before Dawn” wanted to be a spoof of eighties horror movies or a throwback to eighties horror movies. I was never sure if it wanted to deliberately be silly, or if the writers thought this entire twist of the formula was actually clever. And truthfully, I was sad the writers never did much with their idea of Zombie Demons. The writers often seem too gratified with the concept and never actually flesh them out as valid menaces. In fact when they’re monsters that are intended to mainly give you hickeys, and can be beaten up and killed without the characters barely trying, it’s hard to elicit any genuine creeps from the story at all. It feels like the writers made up these absurd and abstract guidelines for these monsters not only as a means of mocking the genre, but as a way of working around the low budget.
To avoid showing any splatter or spending money on stunts or gore, the Zemons really don’t do much except stand around roaring and growling. When they are killed viciously, the director often shifts to reaction shots of the characters screaming or cringing in horror. It’s original that the heroes of the movie react like actual people, screeching at the sight of the monsters and running like cowards, but it’s not effective since the monsters really don’t cause much damage, at all. Do they kill anyone, or do they just attack the people that caused this curse? And if you can simply reverse time like nothing ever happened, why should we be horrified of the skull vase in the first place? One of the only really creepy moments is when the characters are trying to tip toe through a football field filled with dead people that are slowly rising as Zemons.
They of course are too slow and as they flee, the Zemons rise and begin chasing them. It’s a spooky and funny moment that really should have been longer and could have been the most frightening scene of the entire movie. That said while the movie can miss out on opportunities of genuine laughs, it also manages to be funny on many occasions. The weapon gathering montage cracked me up, and Kevin McDonald is hilarious as an obnoxious teacher who lives to make Casper’s life hell. “Dead Before Dawn” is by no means perfect, but for fans in the mood for a movie that proudly delivers silly humor, and some great direction, it’s serviceable.
DVD buyers will be short changed, as the Blu-Ray garners a slew of features. The DVD only offers a Behind the Scenes featurette and the original trailer for “Dead Before Dawn.”
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