Dead End

• Written and Directed by Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa
• January 30, 2003 (Gerardmer Film Festival) / December 12, 2003 (UK) / November 2004 (US)

A family traveling to their grandmother’s house on Christmas Eve takes a shortcut that turns out to be a huge mistake.

Dead End is a low budget horror film that’s set during a Christmas Eve road trip. You can be forgiven for forgetting exactly when it happens as the trees are very green and nobody is wearing a heavy coat despite the story taking place in the northeast United States on December 24^th. Admittedly I’m not in New England but I’m close enough to know that you can’t walk outside at night on December 24^th in just a turtleneck with a thin jacket and expect to be comfortable for more than a few minutes.

I like the idea that we get put on display here but what bothers me is if they just cut out the two or three instances where the characters mention the date or why they are traveling you wouldn’t know when the story occurs. For all intents and purposes this looks like it could have taken place during late summer or early fall and not the dead of winter. Christmas and winter needed to be more of a presence.

This is a horror comedy that plays it surprisingly straight until there’s time for a joke which because of those hit rather hard. You’ll find yourself chuckling at most of them though not all of them. This film manages to get a great deal of mileage out of this family stuck on a lonely road not only in its humor but in the execution of its story.

Most of Dead End takes place in the family car or out in the dark along an abandoned road. The directors deliver a surprisingly effective atmosphere given that they’re probably filming these individual scenes in more or less the same spot. It’s so dark out you can’t tell what is in front or behind them. Not that you really need to be able to do so. 

As can be expected of the family in a movie like this when they get stuck on the lonely road they start finding the worst of themselves coming to the surface. All their problems and dysfunctions get put on display for one another and they start confessing to each other.

This movie stars Alexandra Holden, Ray Wise, Lin Shaye, Mick Cain, Billy Asher, Amber Smith and nobody else unless you count the two actors that show up at the end. Those charracters that the story picks off it spreads out during the course of the movie. Interestingly those kills provide clues to the finale. That is quite clear in hindsight but not too obvious when viewing. A deft bit of creativity on the part of Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa.

While Ray Wise always delivers in any part (the man should be HUGE). His acting is better than one would expect from an extremely low budget film. He gives a surprising realistic character even in the more manic moments. His connection with his wife (Lin Shaye) is realistic and given what we learn genuine. And a reveal that strikes at his character and the emotions his father character displays border on moving.

Lin Shaye is the mother Laura. She is good but does not get to really shine until her character loses touch with reality. Then her performance waffles between comic and sad as well as spiteful. There is a great deal of resentment in Laura only hinted at early in the film and brought to the surface later.

Alexandra Holden as the daughter Marion who is a psychology major. While this does not come too much into play in the overall narrative it is strangely another bit of foreshadowing on the ending.

For an R rated horror film you get surprisingly little gore in this. We see a boogered up hand and a severed ear but really not too much else. It’s more of the characters reacting to seeing a body or something disgusting rather than actually see you seeing something disgusting. There is much more casual nudity than there is gore such as when for whatever reason the son Richard (Mick Cain) decides to go often make himself happy in the middle of the woods with a nude centerfold. Or the mysterious woman in white who they keep encountering drops her clothes off in one move. How does that even work? Where in human history has anyone in something they would normally wear been able to take it off with the extreme ease you can find in this movie? Anywho…

The ending helps this film though it falls a touch on the predictable side. Just before the reveal given what they have dropped along the way you will figure it out even if you did not pick up on every clue. It is a rewarding enough twist that improves the film.

Dead End is an enjoyable enough trashy horror comedy. Despite any faults it’s not a bad watch but it’s nothing that the general audience would go for. It’s more for the strong horror fan and for them I will recommend it but for the rest I think they can skip.