New to DVD is British horror movie Deadtime, a rock band trying to recapture former glories with their new comeback music video. Shortly after they arrive at the disused warehouse, a masked killer starts picking the band off one at a time.
New to DVD
is British horror movie Deadtime, a rock band trying to recapture former
glories with their new comeback music video. Shortly after they arrive at the
disused warehouse, a masked killer starts picking the band off one at a time.
Horror is the one
genre where a low/no budget is usually the norm, and as a result young
filmmakers all over the world will pick up a camera, grab some of their mates
and make their own horror movie.
The likes of Peter
Jackson and Sam Raimi started their respective careers by making low
budget horror movies. Both The Evil Dead and Bad Taste live on as
cult classics at the forefront of a filmmaking revolution, however not every
film is destined for greatness.
Whilst we should
always show our support for the British independent film industry, there is no
denying how thrown together this movie appears.
A Birmingham based
rock band who previously had a hit album have fallen on tough times, their
latest album isn’t selling and the record label have all but written them off. Their
agent Tommy (Terry Christian) sets them up with a warehouse to film
their new music video and begrudgingly the band agree to do it.
Early on a
character goes to painstaking extremes to reiterate his own point that
“This place is perfect, it’s cut off from the outside world, you can’t
even get phone signal in here”. It’s this ham-fisted approach that stops
Deadtime from being an enjoyable no budget horror. Zombie movie Colin
was made for £45 and that turned out pretty good.
There was recently
a fair bit of press surrounding this film as the BBFC had demanded a scene be
cut from the movie. Overall 12 seconds was removed but the scene in question
remains brutal and somewhat unnecessary.
Sadly the
performances range from bearable to awful, and both Terry Christian and Lesley
Grantham seem bewildered in the brief and rather pointless cameos.
At times Deadtime
nearly comes across as a clever spoof or send up of a well worn genre, but
after a shoe horned in revelation right towards the end things get very silly,
and not in a so bad it’s good way.
The filmmakers had
a great location and a fairly good premise, so it’s a real shame that the end
result isn’t more consistent or enjoyable.