DEAD NIGHT (2017)

Studio:       Dark Sky Films
Director:    Bradford Baruh
Writer:       Irving Walker, Bradford Baruh
Producer:  Andy Meyers, Bradford Baruh
Stars:     Brea Grant, AJ Bowen, Sophie Dalah, Elise Luthman, Joshua Hoffman, Daniel Roebuck, Joy Osmanski, Kay D’Arcy, Sky Soleil, Alexander Ward, Barbara Crampton

Review Score:

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Summary:

A spiritualistic healing retreat in snowy woods turns deadly when a family of five encounters a mysterious woman.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

June 12, 1961 – A killer in tattered white robes murders a man parked in a forest with his girlfriend. Another person in tattered white robes watches as a robed creature with claws delivers a baby girl, Leslie Bison, from a captive woman.

March 21, 2015 – Casey Pollack takes her husband James, teenage son Jason, daughter Jessica, and Jessica’s friend Becky Lane to a cabin built on an iron oxide deposit in the woods. Casey explains that her spiritualist friend and rental agent Mika Shand claimed people who stay there can have their energy realigned, which Casey hopes will help alleviate James’ cancer.

Robed women are seen around a spiral-shaped stone in the forest. A hand cuts off a pink pod growing out of the rock.

Leslie Bison phones Mika Shand to put their secret plan into motion. Mika uses her car to pull down trees as a road blockade discovered later by Ranger Paul.

After the family settles in at the house, James and Jason find Leslie lying unconscious outside in the snow. James calls for Casey, who revives Leslie using CPR.

The family escorts Leslie into the house. Leslie peculiarly begins making herself at home.

Casey drives down the mountain to get a cellphone signal for calling 911 to report finding an injured woman. Casey also calls Becky’s grandmother Lily to let her know that her granddaughter arrived safely.

Casey returns for dinner with her family and Leslie. Leslie’s increasingly bizarre behavior makes everyone uncomfortable.

After James asks her to leave, Leslie reveals a small stone that she slashes into the back of Jessica’s neck. Jessica dies and transforms into a zombie minion.

Casey seemingly stabs Leslie to death, but the victim turns out to be James. Leslie inexplicably vanishes.

Jessica attacks Casey. Becky knocks Jessica off of Casey. James’ dead body reanimates as an entranced zombie after becoming possessed by a sentient stone.

Casey runs into the woods to try leading James away from Jason and Becky. Leslie briefly attacks Casey before vanishing again.

At the cabin, James and Jessica capture Jason and Becky. Leslie forces the pod seen earlier into Becky’s mouth.

Casey finds Mika on the road. Realizing Mika knows what is going on, Casey stabs Mika to force her to talk. Casey asks how to reverse the transformation, but Mika claims it is impossible.

Leslie calls Mika’s phone and cryptically references “the ladies.” Casey takes the phone and strikes a deal to exchange Mika for Jason, although Leslie eventually transforms Jason.

Mika tells Casey that “the ladies” have a home a mile into the woods where Mika refuses to go. Casey leaves Mika tied to a tree and goes on alone. Someone in tattered robes kills Mika.

A woman in tattered robes confronts Casey and reveals herself to be Becky’s grandmother Lily. Lily takes Casey to a clearing where other robed women are assembled around a stack of televisions. Lily vaguely refers to the women as witches who receive guidance from the spiral-shaped rock.

Lily shows Casey an episode of the true crime TV newsmagazine “Inside Crime” that Lily explains is a vision of the future. In it, host Jack Sterling interviews principal people involved in the case against Casey, who became known as the “Axe Mom” responsible for killing her family. Interviewees include lead detective Dean Walker of the Mt. Ryerson Police Department, neighbors Martha and Carl Hastings, and Dr. Cynthia Ramsey, all of whom claim that there never was an injured woman and that Casey committed the brutal crimes alone.

A commercial shows Leslie Bison running for governor of Oregon. Lily explains that Leslie is leading their collective into the future. Lily also tells Casey that the only way to set her family free is to collect the stone fragments possessing them by severing their heads and burning their bodies.

Casey drives back to the cabin to confront Leslie and her minions. Casey uses an ax to behead Jessica. After witnessing the act, Martha and Carl Hastings call the police, who summon Detective Walker to the scene.

While Leslie flees with Becky held captive, Casey decapitates James and Jason. Casey sets fire to the corpses as cops begin arriving. Stones are seen slithering on the ground.

Leslie takes Becky to the woods where Becky transforms into a clawed creature in front of Lily and other women in tattered robes. Leslie closes her eyes as Becky puts her clawed hand on Leslie’s head. A newscast reveals that Leslie went on to win the Oregon governor’s race.

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Review:

Early words out of Fantastic Fest 2017 weren’t terribly kind to “Applecart.”  Some saw intentional humor in the movie’s bizarre newsmagazine narrative while applauding genre icon Barbara Crampton’s against-type turn as a vampy villain.  Many published critics and average attendees were content to call the film a hot mess made messier by its ill-fitting dual storylines.

Taking the unfavorable reviews to heart, the filmmakers went back to the edit bay to re-cut “Applecart” for its second screening at Cinepocalypse two months later.  Three months after that, “Applecart” was washing off some of its stigmatic stink by going under the new title “Dead Night” while shopping for distribution at the European Film Market.

I didn’t see “Dead Night” under its “Applecart” incarnation, although I kind of wish I had.  Mostly because “Dead Night” is so incomprehensibly conceived, I’m morbidly curious how much worse “Applecart” possibly could have been.  No amount of retooling can salvage a watchable film out of scrap when the core story and available footage are this fundamentally flawed.

As near as I can gather, changes made since the movie’s premiere appear largely related to excising several clips from the “true crime” TV show from the future that alternates with the plotline occurring in the present.  Two other reviews reference jailhouse interviews with Brea Grant’s character that don’t appear in the home video version at any rate.

Now is as good of a time as any to mention that whatever director Bradford Baruh intended to accomplish with these newsmagazine non-sequiturs, it didn’t work.  Some speculate that the nonsensical nature of the segments, highlighted by Daniel Roebuck overplaying the host almost as hammily as Bill Hader did his Keith Morrison impression on SNL, means to satirically skewer consumption of docutainment television.  Others contend that the divergent viewpoints regarding events in the film shine a light on how popular perception can actually be the misinformed perspective.

I say, “pfft.”  With unclear tone violently wobbling to and fro like Andy Capp on a bender, playing these predictive clips in parallel undermines suspense by showing us the entire road before the engine even turns over.  “Dead Night” becomes a prime example of why it rarely works in a mystery’s best interests to show/tell us the ending ahead of time, taking tension out of upcoming scenes in the process.

I can’t offer a concise plot summary because frankly, I’m not certain what “Dead Night’s” story is.  The setup, on the other hand, involves Casey Pollack, whom we are told will go on to become a murderer known as “Axe Mom,” taking her ill husband James to a remote cabin built on land thought to have spiritual healing properties.  With them are teen son Jason, teen daughter Jessica, and Jessica’s friend Becky.

We’re introduced to the facts above through some painfully obvious expository dialogue. Casey tells Jason, “stop trying to impress your sister’s friend!”  James says, “your mom didn’t tell you the cabin’s built on a pile of magic rocks? … Your mom’s trying to cure me.”  You know, the way people naturally talk by referring to everyone using names and relationships as well as explaining motivations behind every action.

Once at the cabin, the girls sneak a cigarette while discussing inconsequential family problems, Jason has difficulty downloading porn to remind us that cellphone connectivity is spotty, and everyone generally wastes time until mystery woman Leslie Bison shows up on the scene.  Leslie, a candidate for Oregon governor of all things, connects to some creepy people wearing tattered robes in the woods who assemble around a spiral rock that grows pulsing pink pods.  If that prior sentence inspires a “wait, what?” reaction, get used to it.  “Dead Night” interjects many more head-scratchers before its scatterbrained script finally comes to its confusing close.

Every odd directorial choice triggers a question regarding details.  Why does text specify the month, day, and year for the first two scenes when a simple “54 Years Later” would suffice?  What value is there in having Leslie’s crony pull down trees offscreen so a random ranger can find the blockade, even though police have no problem driving past it just a few minutes later?  Who still finds it stylish to score a murder montage to an operatic aria, as if Hannibal Lecter clones didn’t kill that conceit countless years ago?

Credits listing characters not seen in the film to my recollection, including Jenni Whitmore, Karl Durant, Amanda Tate, and Manny and Kate Rothwell, suggest the slim 75-minute duration might relate to even more cut content.  I can’t imagine the fiction being any easier to follow if such scenes were included however.  As said before, if this is what “Dead Night” looks like, imagine the shambles “Applecart” must have been in.

On a technical level, “Dead Night” actually looks pretty good.  Packed with gloriously gruesome practical effects that easily would have earned a Fangoria cover in 1991, gorehounds at least get some satisfaction from the film’s spectacularly cinematic carnage.

But when a film features “Phantasm” (review here) architect Don Coscarelli as executive producer, “Insidious” and “The Conjuring” (review here) composer Joseph Bishara on music, and familiar L.A. horror faces Brea Grant, AJ Bowen, and Chase Williamson in its cast, horror fans are right to expect something more than what “Dead Night” disappointingly delivers.  At the very least, they should expect a movie that makes some semblance of sense, which “Dead Night” definitely does not.

NOTE: There is a post-credits scene.

Review Score:  40

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