The Dread (2007) User Reviews

Another terrible zero budget shot on a camcorder piece of crap horror film.

[poolandrews · 2/10 · 19 April 2008]

The Dread starts on the 12th October, 1986 as Mr & Mrs Brewer are found brutally murdered in their own house... Jump forward fifteen years & Teri Edwards (Sally Pressman) is told by her step-mom that she is adopted, wanting to find out about her own family Teri does some investigation & discovers that she was born Teri Brewer, her parents were murdered, she was adopted & the brother she never knew she had has been in a psychiatric institution for the past fifteen years after being accused of their parents murder. Teri decides to visit her brother Alex (J. Steadman) but it seems that Alex hasn't spoken all the time he has been incarcerated. As Teri visits brutal murders begin to happen...

Edited, co-written & directed by Michael Spence one has to say that The Dread is terrible & it's as simple & straight forward as that. Amazingly three people are credited with the script, Spence, Casey Conlon & Karen C. O'Malley which quite frankly stuns me as I can't believe it takes three people to write something so simple, so predictable & just so downright rubbish as The Dread. I pretty much hate most modern low budget shot on a camcorder type horror & have very little good to say about it & a film such as The Dread merely reinforces why I dislike this sort of generic crap. There's no sort of coherent story, nothing is explained, the significance of the computer game isn't explained, why Alex turns into a monster isn't explained, why he doesn't speak for fifteen years isn't explained, why the murders just suddenly start up again isn't explained, why after a murder the local cops only send out two detectives isn't explained, why everyone insists on splitting up all the time isn't explained, why no-one thinks to just leave the place until five minutes before the end isn't explained, why Teri doesn't remember being adopted or her parents being murdered is never explained & how two teenagers can hide behind a wheelchair as an orderly walks past without being noticed isn't explained & quite frankly just lazy. The character's are awful, why would two teenagers want to break into a mental institution for fun for instance? The dialogue is awful, there's far too much running around in corridors doing nothing in particular & no-one ever does anything logical.

Director Spense doesn't do much to improve the script, obviously working on a low budget The Dread is still a poor looking film. At least the filmmakers attempt to try & include some gore, it's not very good but there's a decapitated head, some splashed blood, a couple of mutilated bodies, someone is shot, someones heart is ripped out & that's about it. Also you cannot climb up the inside of a vertical ventilation shaft like they do, I don't care what anyone says. I mean they don't even hold on to anything, they just sort of push themselves up which is impossible. The monster isn't seen until the end & even then it doesn't look that great. The Dread certainly isn't scary & why are there no lights in this mental institution? Don't give me all that rubbish about the electricity being cut off either, I mean there's still enough electricity for Alex to play his computer game isn't there? The whole opening sequence is a rip-off of Halloween (1978) as a young boy kills members of his family, unfortunately that's where the comparison ends as The Dread is so cheap looking & lacking in any suspense or atmosphere.

With a supposed budget of about $875,000 The Dread was low budget & it looks it too, there's not much else to say other than it looks cheap & nasty. According to the IMDb The Dread was filmed between 17th October & 5th November 2005 in Michigan although remained unreleased until 2007. The acting isn't great, horror fans should recognise Ellen Sandweiss as Cheryl from the classic The Evil Dead (1981) & she has aged very well & looks very similar to she did back then.

The Dread is pretty dreadful, I know it's a cheap one-liner but it's perfectly apt & appropriate when used in conjunction with The Dread. Basically The Dread is terrible & a total mess of a film.

Surprisingly tame slasher

[BakuryuuTyranno · 3/10 · 3 January 2011]

This slasher - it aired during a slasher week shown on the horror channel anyways - features upwards of twenty victims. You would expect it to feature high amounts of blood and gore but surprisingly that isn't the case.

The protagonist has a brother in a mental institution. She takes forever to get there because... well actually as far as I've seen there is no because, someone decided a slasher movie with a side story about the protagonist's life running throughout the first half was a good idea. Really, cutting it to her simply finding out she's adopted would have sufficed. While that's happening superfluous characters get killed off, including a couple who break into a working mental facility and make love. Sadly I'm not kidding.

Minor spoiler: The movie features a vacuous, annoying assistant type. She literally walks out of the film considerably before the climax. That's right, out of any characters they could've spared they chose the least likable.

Minor spoiler #2: The couple broke in through a door. Somehow later the doors are sealed shut. Given that the institution is closing down you'd think they wouldn't have time for that, assuming they even knew a door had been tampered with.

For b grade horror fans only

[cartza · 3/10 · 15 December 2007]

The concept seems simple but interesting. A asylum stricken young man Alex seems to be able to transform into a maniacal vicious creature with the ability of becoming non corporeal. He is in the asylum due to becoming non responsive after the brutal murder of his parents, something which his monstrous alter ego could be responsible for. The creature has laid dormant for years until a doctor revives old memories for Alex. The killings become more violent when his biological sister Teri comes for a visit(she was adopted after the parents were murdered).

This film starts out okay (i'm talking the first couple of minutes), but quickly suffers a downward spiral. If this were a student film for a school project, it would rate well. But it isn't, so it doesn't. Obviously this film had bugger all budget, but i have seen better films on a shoe string budget. Supporting actors seem to be people giving it there best shot, but most of them don't make the grade. The music score is b grade but acceptably so. Includes some horror clichés, like horny teenagers breaking into the asylum for a cheap scare. Word of advise, if you take your date into an asylum and she strips saying she's always wanted to have sex in one, she is most likely nuts herself so i'd steer clear.

The point of view shot coming up behind the main character to try and trick the viewer into thinking the killer is behind them. Usually filmmakers do this shot after the killer is loose, not before. The creature is poor and is quite obviously a guy in a costume. If the mouth moved when it talked, it might redeem it a little. But it didn't, so it doesn't. There is some blood and guts for gore hounds, but not great views of it as it will become obvious that they are animal parts from the butcher shop or corn syrup mixed with red food dye. Best performances go to the lead detective played by Marvin Bernard and asylum ward caretaker Sid Ellis. The asylum manager played by Ellen Sandweiss completely overacts and would have expected more from someone who seems to have the most acting experience in the whole movie (she was in the first Evil Dead). Alex's sister played by Sally Pressman is adequate.

The Dreadful.

[buddypatrick · 1/10 · 31 July 2007]

To start off the movie's title 'The Dread' is not captivating as it sounds like a terrible remake of a Japanese Horror. However the dingy title matches the cinematic quality as the film is utterly abysmal. With a shoestring budget that's been used depressingly bad its evident the creators of this film had no idea what they were doing; the plot, copious amount of cliché's, dreadful acting, screenplay, special effects; the whole movie is a giant train wreck that I'm surprised was ever released to DVD.

The film starts out with a wannabe opening from Halloween; homage or not it's executed in a very uninteresting way and it is almost as though the creators are trying to pass it off as their own with an alter ego addition. The story is about a child's "inner evil" that murders his parentals in their bed whilst his real body sits in front of a scratchy pictured television screen whilst playing a video game – little tension and atmosphere as it seems to be shot on someone's digital home video. A decade or so later the now grown up child is locked away in a derelict mental clinic – does this not sound familiar already? Teri, the protagonist discovers that her long lost brother is the same boy who killed his parent's year's back and she decides to see her apparent brother with her own eyes. As the night goes on in the clinic with supernaturally locked doors the film turns into a very typical, badly written and ugly acted slasher. Even if the film had been executed professionally it still would have been insanely unoriginal and mind numbingly dumb. This is Halloween with minor alterations only this time it's very hard to sit through and even see as the picture quality is so bad.

The picture quality is very terrible ranging from unintentionally too dark attics and hallways to audio that goes up and down throughout and the actors are as though they were taken from a bus stop. My drama class back in school could have done a better job at blocking and delivering lines than anyone in the film did. The only person who is acceptable is The Evil Deads cult star Ellen Sandwiess, possibly because she has about one or two lines and even then is the only actor who is mildly convincing. The special effects look like tomato sauce and water and even looked like water at times however at least the gore was there even though in an over the top fashion. Torn up torso's that look like mannequins made of foam with gore that looks like dried up PVA glue spilling from it is nonsensical. The paranormal being an element of the film is not an excuse either. It's pathetic and tries to use gore to make a scary villain which is a huge no-no. There is no budget that is an excuse for such a terrible film like this.

Absolutely everything in this film was pathetic and I am surprised I sat through its entire duration. It makes one agitated that there are people out there in the industry with real talent and well structured ideas that never get their way into film. The Dread is a bad film and this is coming from a reviewer who has intentionally seen hundreds of films with bad reputations. The dread is way at the bottom of the barrel and won't even form into a so-bad-its-good cult film. Nothing can save you from the dread of The Dread. Avoid.

Oh My God!!

[witchcraftpentagrams · 1/10 · 17 August 2007]

When i saw the cover for this movie i thought OMG this is going to be the scariest movie and goriest movie i have ever seen but Jesus Christ i have never seen a worse movie in my whole life. The acting is fine but the picture quality is like soap opera show quality and the effects are bad too and the storyline is probably the worse. you cant connect with the characters or anything. There is a horrible half sex scene which is pointless and the killer just plays video games there is no plot and you don't like properly get to meet the characters. And the mental hospital is sooo bad i cant stand it. the rooms have other doors in there and electricity boxes too. its like they made a movie for a school contest its so bad. and there are only a few characters as well and some of the patients just simply walk around the hospital and the killer costume design is the worst i have ever seen. its like he is dressed to go to a halloween dance party. the coat thing he wears is like what i would wear to school or something and he is wearing a mask which you could buy at your local supermarket. its not original but its not interesting. and in the final bossfight its like *jab* oh well hes dead and im him now OK then lets show the end credits now which go at 100km an hour.

A low budget tale of haunted videogames & killer spirits.

[DigitalRevenantX7 · 3/10 · 11 June 2015]

CAUTION: Plot spoilers present.

Esteemed young documentary filmmaker Teri Brewer finds out on her mother's deathbed that she was adopted & that she had a slightly older brother who was placed into a mental asylum following the brutal but unsolved murder of their parents when they were infants. Tracking down the brother (named Alex), Teri & her boyfriend find themselves in danger when a malevolent spirit that had been residing in a video game that Alex had been playing at the time of the deaths comes out & uses Alex's body has a host in order to kill again.

The Dread answers the question of whatever happened to female THE EVIL DEAD star Ellen Sandweiss – she's still stuck doing ultra-cheap horror schlock twenty years after her breakthrough role. But unlike The Evil Dead, which was gleefully inventive & darkly funny, The Dread is neither of those things.

The main problem I had with the film was the central concept of a malevolent entity residing in a video game – as a dedicated video game player, I find any attempt by the conservative types out there to blame videogames as violent garbage that warps minds as nothing but unfounded rubbish (these same types also decry genre films as violent & bad for children but think nothing about allowing young people access to firearms – this kind of hypocrisy is what gets me really fired up in anger). The story is filled with stupid plot devices that make it look really bad in the eyes of genre fans – security is tight in the soon-to-be-closed asylum but a pair of horny teens manage to sneak in using a long forgotten service door that nobody in the asylum's staff even bothers to remember to use when the crap hits the fan. Some of the characters have been poorly written – Sandweiss' character walks around always holding a pencil (& sure enough gets impaled with all of her pencils in one of the film's more entertaining deaths], while some of the 'crazies' running around are age-old clichés.

The film does manage to compensate slightly by having a reasonably gory third act but the climax fails to coherently explain the nature of the entity – the early parts of the film make a vague claim that the creature is living inside the video game that the child was playing, but later on the creature seems to be born inside the host & can jump to a sibling when the host dies. Nothing is explained satisfactorily enough to carry the film along, leaving the film to collapse like a house of cards.

Could have been better

[byronhold · 3/10 · 5 July 2020]

The acting was okay. The premise was good. Overall execution was weak. I'll admit, I washed dishes and did laundry as the movie played, because it wasn't compelling, in the least. For a mediocre mid day film that is a noise distraction, I recommend it. For anyone who wants a ghost/crime/mystery story you'll care about, avoid.

Reviews

[tmccull52 · 1/10 · 10 July 2021]

See all of those other one and two star reviews for this movie? PAY ATTENTION TO THEM; THEY'RE DEAD-ON ACCURATE.

The story is regurgitated tripe; poorly executed, regurgitated tripe. The acting is farcical. An example of both is when a young couple breaks into the old mental institution because the woman has always wanted to do it in a nut house. Really?

The ending of the movie is completely predictable. "Good" is futile, ultimately ineffective; "Evil" triumphs and goes on forever. Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda.

If you're bored out of your skull and have absolutely, virtually nothing else to do, you should still pass on this rancid bowel movement of a film.

Meh

[ladymidath · 5/10 · 11 August 2022]

Not really bad but not great either. I had trouble watching it after a while as I became really bored with it after a while. The acting was okay but again, not really enough to keep my attention. With better direction and acting, it could have been a pretty good movie.

The Dread is Dreadful

[ansell-72879 · 2/10 · 26 June 2021]

The Dread

Suffixes are interesting. Dread has one meaning, dreadful another. This movie makes its own contribution to grammar though. The Dread is dreadful.

Director, Michael Spence, had made two movies before Dread so we should rightfully expect more based on his having had relevant experience. Despite a competent slasher intro, the acting is wooden, the action, well, non-existent and the general tone lacklustre.

The best part of the movie takes place during the credits.

I don't think I'm giving anything away when I say that the movie is about a sister, Sally Pressmanas as Teri, who starts to have doubts about her brother, Ryan Welsh as Chris, who is institutionalized in a mental health facility. The action, such as it is, starts when Teri starts visiting Chris.

Oh, and the odd couple who are desperate to have sex in a mental health facility, well, they did provide the obligatory breast shot that is required of this type of film. Otherwise, what was their function?

Sally Pressman has a lot going for her. A successful modelling career, university graduate and trained ballet dancer. How did she end up in this? How did she end up being so bad in this?

Ryan Welsh, well, he has form with this sort of thing.

With all due respect to Days of Our Lives, it was hardly a quality production in the mid-sixties. The Dread, echoes those production values, evident in Days of 1965. The problem is The Dread was made in 2007.

Director Michael Spence co-wrote The Dread with Karen C. O'Malley. What an indictment against the American education system. The dialogue is stilted and lacking in any emotive variation at all. Spence and O'Malley must have seen quality movies in their personal lives. Copy what the successful do!

It takes Pressman 45 minutes to visit her brother. This is when the movie really starts. That's 45 minutes into a 95 minute movie. Oh, and she parks in a disabled car park when she does eventually visit.

Ryan Walshe's character suffers from SRD. I'm not really given to viciousness but, stupid, really dumb, was the first thing which ran through my mind. Other commentators have mentioned The Dread in the context of Halloween. As we in Australia say, they are drawing a damn long bow. There is no real resonance between the two.

Oh, there is a minor character, a female in-patient, the actors name is Chelsea Simeon I think, who wears a onsey, and is quite sweet and engaging. I don't know that investing 95 minutes for a 2 minute walk on is a good return though.

No one deliberately sets out to make a bad production. (Well maybe Mel Brookes in The Producers.) I'm certain that all involved had high hopes for The Dread. Both they and the viewer have had those hopes dashed.

Friday the 13th meets The Room

[faithbarnettvr · 10/10 · 3 October 2020]

Acting? Stellar. Shot composure? God Tier. Script? Better than Kubrick. A hidden gem from Kalamazoo MI.

"We are, the choices we make."

[Foreverisacastironmess123 · 6/10 · 28 September 2013]

How dreadfully true... Okay I personally didn't really find this to be such a bad film, but it definitely sure as Hell ain't such a good one either! It gets points for genuinely unsettling tone and atmosphere, but it also loses crucial points for the heaps of sheer lousiness and stupidity on display!!! This was ~so~ lame! All that confusing as heck stuff in the mad little prologue? That was not a homage, it was a blatant, near-total rip-off of Halloween! They also manage to slightly rip-off "Alien" too, at one point! And then there's the graphics of the of presumably 'cursed' video game that warps little Alex's mind that were so laughably pathetic they would have barely been acceptable on the Atari! Cheapness was the number one issue of this movie in my opinion. I know it was incredibly low budget, but surely it couldn't have cost much to move the camera a little every now and then just a bit so that every single damn scene didn't feel so wooden! Now the actors also I didn't find that terrible. Yes they were all dull and not one of them seemed able to speak above a monotone, but they were coherent and passable enough that you could follow the story, and let's just say they were right for this movie and leave it at that! I actually enjoy this movie a little, as horrors go, it's definitely beyond mediocre and poor, but hey it's still a lot better than the anti-movie that was "Troll 2." To me it was never so unbearably slow and boring that I couldn't stand watching it, and to my way of thinking a truly bad film is always one that is boring. And even though it never delivered I found it very compelling, and the small music score was effectively haunting. If there was one thing this excelled at, it was mood. It was set in a decrepit insane asylum, that's always a good thing to have in your horror picture! This sure wasn't the most sparkling example of one ever though.. I'm not even sure it was set in a real one, as all that is ever really seen is few cell rooms and the same giant hallway over and over. It was nice to see a TV horror movie that wasn't slathered in low-grade cgi, but unfortunately the overall look of the film is just too pale and grainy, especially in all the scenes that feature the grown up Alex. I think the blank expression on the guy's face was supposed to be all sinister, but it came more across as him just looking a little retarded. And the red scarecrow/grim reaper thing that he somehow had the mystical power to 'astral project' into amid fits of crazy spasming and weird static electric flashes, was plain pathetic and wasn't imposing or scary at all. It looked like a bunch of cheap rags with even cheaper makeup. And it didn't help one bit that it was mostly heavily obscured by shadows and quick cuts. ::: There's no bull about this crummy movie, it is what it is,, and asks nothing of the viewer except that they shut off their brain and at least try and have a good time! The ending is pretty messed up. The climax of the film is, basically "Terry", after vanquishing her brother in a lame sword fight, ends up getting possessed by the same unexplained dark force that had taken over him, and the movie ends on the totally creepy image of her just smiling this evil little smile right at the camera with her now "Exorcist-style demonic eyes. And even though like everything else in this flick it comes out kind of weak and haphazard, I like the message that great evil can lurk in anyone, that anyone unwary can through thought and deed wind up losing their very soul... I found it to be a very chilling final scene. Regardless though, horror films aren't for everyone, and this is definitely one for hardcore fans of the genre. I thought for what it was, it was a good effort. I'll see ya.

I always wanted to do it in a looney bin

[nogodnomasters · 6/10 · 8 April 2020]

Alex (J. Steadman ) is an unresponsive patient at the Briarcliff Psychiatric Hospital. He has been that way since age 8 when his parents were brutally murdered. Teri (Sally Pressman) is a freelance journalist who discovers she was adopted and has a brother. She also has bad dreams. The film eventually becomes a slasher.

The main problem I had with the feature was the origin of the "Dread." It seemed to be related to a kid's video game from 1986. It needed a background scene. Other than that, this 2005 film is more like an 80's horror.

Guide: F-word, sex, nudity (Kristin Walker)

Pretty low on the indie scale, but with its moments

[hocfocprod · 3 November 2011]

I'm not going to go over the plot much because others have explained what there is of one pretty well. The movie has a lot of dead ends and leaves a lot of things unexplained. These, I feel, were the biggest weaknesses besides the attempt at creating atmosphere with a lack of lighting. Some scenes were spot on in their look, but many were muddy and lacked any detail at all.

A mediocre monster, general gore and acting that was a bit below pro-level all give away the movie's low budget roots. I feel all of these are forgivable though when you consider the short amount of time they apparently had to shoot and the small amount of money. While I'm sure there are many filmmakers who could have done more with $150,000 on a video production budget, I can see how it bogs things down.

Where budget shouldn't be a factor is the screenplay itself. Most of the time I wasn't quite sure what the hell was going on and by the end I just didn't care. There was something about a video game and a monster and a crazy kid who was now an adult. How the monster worked, what his particular powers were or how he chose his victims wasn't important I guess.

So, if you're watching a movie tonight to be scared witless, see Oscar winning performances by actors who had time to connect with their characters, grade-A special F/X or a deep story with rich, full characters, give this one a pass. But, if you like to see monsters dismember people you can fast forward to the fun parts.