Clive Barker's Dread

This wasn't one of Barker's best short stories, and it doesn't fair especially well with a transfer to film.

Theres a lot of the original material in there, but its painted with broad strokes and a lot of the psychological element is lost.

There are no demons in this film!

A Clive Barker influenced movie is not for everyone. This film is very, very dark. Not so much scary as unsettling. You would not like to meet these characters in real life. This is more of an experience than entertainment. Burns very slowly and creates an unreal world where the characters live.

Okay, Clive Barker’s Dread may not be the worst horror film I’ve ever seen, but it’s no masterpiece – distinctly average to say the least.

For the start it’s too dark. And I don’t mean the subject matter, I mean it came across like the Lighting Direction called in sick every day while filming.

There didn’t seem to be much of a story (I hear it was adapted from a ‘short story’ so perhaps they tried to flesh it out too much?). It centres on a young student called Stephen who has possibly the most unlikeable friend, Quaid, you’ve ever seen. Quaid is violent (even towards Stephen and other students), aggressive, stupid, drink drives while thinking its funny and destroys people’s property without any consequence. Nevertheless, Stephen thinks Quaid would be a good partner for his college thesis.

Guess what? It all goes badly and – guess what again – it’s largely down to Quaid.

What started out as quite an interesting idea just doesn’t work out. It doesn’t have enough story and is very uneven and messy.

Yeah, there are a few good bits here and there (I particularly liked the ending), but, overall, I would say they come few and far between.

Jesus, that was TERRIBLE!

I had to switch it off 25 minutes in .... Like watching students roam around halls of sodding residence doing absolutely nothing in the process.

AVOID