Dead List (2018)

So, here’s the problem with watching a movie when you’re going to be writing about it: you stop being a viewer and become a reviewer. Whereas you can normally drop your ass in a theater seat or in front of a video screen and just let it roll, now there’s a kind of expectation attached to your viewing experience. There’s a hope that what you’re about to witness is truly, surprisingly amazing. Because you know that there were folks who put their time, talents, and money into whatever it is you’re watching . . . and you’re still enough of a movie-lover that you don’t want to lift your leg on someone’s hard work.

But sometimes you just gotta take a piss.

It’s not that DEAD LIST is a bad movie. In fact, as I was maybe half the way through this indie horror flick, I was actively wishing that it was much worse than it was. Because there’s a giddy, what-the-fuck kind of joy to seeing a truly unadulterated train wreck of a movie, the kind of production where even a limited budget displays more money than sense. This little ditty, however, is set (and probably even shot) in L.A. and looks like they might have sunk as much thought into it as they did funds. The writing was decent enough, the acting basically respectable, some of the effects pretty good. There wasn’t anything at all that made this a bad movie.

But it kinda just didn’t matter to me.

Okay, so here’s what happened. There’s a bunch of friends out in Los Angeles . . . they’re frenemies, really, a bunch of actors who usually end up at the same auditions. We get to see the group interacting, bitching about missing out on yet another part. This one’s a Scorsese movie, apparently (because his name is only mentioned, like, nine fucking times in the movie). Cal – kind of our protagonist, played by Deane Sullivan – screeches to a halt outside the audition, running like his life depended on it. Smarmy douchebag Scott (Nick Franchik) is standing smugly outside (because, yeah, this dude even stands smugly), informing Cal that he missed them calling his name. He didn’t really, of course, but that’s the kinda dude Scott is. Hell, maybe that’s just what most Los Angeles actors are like.

At least in this movie, they’re good-looking, white twenty-something dudes. All of them. Diversity might be a thing in Hollywood at the moment, but these folks haven’t gotten the memo yet. Kinda got the feeling that overt ethnicity, femininity, or “alternative” sexuality would make most of these dudes uncomfortable. Despite the competitive nature of their relationships, there’s definitely an aura of bro-ness hanging over everything here. Like their frat is the movies and auditions are just their keggers. Maybe that’s the beginning of my disconnect from this flick: never been a bro, never wanted to be one, and I’m kinda suspect of those who do. But I accepted it as part of the atmosphere of the movie, if not an engine that helps to run the plot.

As the post-audition pretty-boy-bitch-fest breaks up, each of our bros launch into their own piece of the story. It’s kind of an anthology film with an overarching frame . . . nothing ground-breaking, but not too bad. Each new section of the movie is one of the guys’ names. Zander. Scott. Jason. Kush. Bob. The individual sections are of varying quality, with Jason and Kush probably getting the best bits. Each of their names etches itself in fire, or maybe blood, into a kind of Necronomicon-looking book, which doesn’t actually appear in the film proper until a little later. As their names appear in the book, each guy is basically deadlisted . . . a Hollywood term, at least in this flick, that’s even worse than being blacklisted.

Speaking of black . . .

Yeah, so not one of these guys is anything but white, attractive, twenty-something. Already told you that. But the first segment focuses on Zander (Matt Fowler). Cruising down the highway after his audition . . . a nice car, probably headed toward a nice apartment. He’s trying to get in on some of his wealthy girlfriend’s daddy’s money, but he’s obviously doing pretty good as it is. To live even the shittiest, dirtbomb existence in L.A., you need to be pulling down several grand a month. Uh-huh, I’ve got zero empathy for this son-of-a-bitch right outta the box, so he’d better be some kinda stellar human being. Well, he’s not. He’s on the phone, going on about how you have to do whatever it takes to get these roles, maybe take it in the ass, blah, blah, blah . . . and I’m already like, hey, how are we gonna kill this dick-hole?

That’s when he hears some kind of newsflash on the radio. Police are in pursuit of a black man in a blah-blah-blah car. Because in L.A. they interrupt all satellite radio stations every time a cop chases a black dude. Naturally, since he’s probably never even seen anyone who wasn’t white, Zander says, “Glad I’m not black.”

Well, suddenly he is. Matter of fact, he’s the exact black guy the cops are in pursuit of. He sees the black face peering back at him from the rearview mirror, hears the sirens behind him . . . and realizes that he might actually have to struggle to get a role, and that white chicks are gonna start giving him strange looks in elevators. Oh, and there’s suddenly a gun in the car with him. Being white (at least inside), he pulls over and assumes that he can shuck-and-jive his way out of . . . what, a ticket? Who knows? Well, there’s no talking your way out of being black. So when our frat boy hits the pavement, all we hear are police shouting and the sound of gunshots in the streets of L.A.

Good, I thought. And at least this movie gave one role to a black guy, even if it was just a five-second appearance in a rearview mirror.

There’s some narrative connective tissue . . . Cal looking at a script or something . . . and then we line up the next douchebag for the kill. This time it’s Scott, who I took an instant disliking to. Yeah, part of it’s because he’s young, rich, and good-looking – and probably the same kinda shit-monger who would have picked on people like me in junior high. But since he’s also portrayed as an asshole, I’m actually supposed to dislike him. So, really, it’s not just me. He’s on the phone as he enters his apartment . . . again, fancy and expensive . . . going on about “I fuckin’ killed it tonight”. And I’m grinning because he just said killed, which I figure is about to happen to him.

Then there’s this terrible ringing sound . . . or maybe the sound is going out. The dude is going deaf, or maybe his cell phone is killing him. God, if only. So, rather than shutting it off, or maybe tossing it outside, Pretty Boy Void decides that busting out a power drill is the best answer. As he fires up the drill, the shiny sharp bit spinning and spinning, closer and closer to the face of the phone . . . a similar drill is headed right for the back of his head . . . and, as the metal pierces the phone, it also penetrates his skull and . . .

What the fuck.

Okay, whatever. At least he’s dead . . . and now we’re moving back to the framework story . . . which is pretty much about Cal. I like Cal, he’s the least vapid and douchy of all his friends. Whether it’s the actor or the way he’s written, I couldn’t tell you. Probably the actor. Yeah, he’s a pretty-boy too, but the rest of these ass-hats act like he’s not, so I’m just going with it. But as Cal is driving back from his missed audition, there’s this book flapping up the street . . .

Yeah, you read that right. Like wings, just flap, flap, flapping up the street. Like something Sam Raimi might have done but figured that a severed spider-hand looked a bit more realistic. Uh-huh, now you’re picking up what I’m laying down. Flap-flap-flap, then SLAM against the windshield of Cal’s (possibly slightly-less-expensive) car. He gets out, peels it off the window . . . big fiery A glowing in the book, like both dead guys we’ve seen so far . . . and it’s obviously a bible with some alterations. But I’m digging that . . . cuz making up a bible to look like the Book of the Dead just screams indie desperation, ingenuity, and a little bit of irreverence. So, I’m kinda feeling the indie part of this all of a sudden.

Then it hits me . . . you know, a couple scenes later . . . oh, all of these segments are told out of order . . . because Cal “finds” the book, makes some kinda voodoo wish shit with candles, and then the dudes all start konking off. So, it’s like the PULP FICTION of horror . . . if I was really, really super-duper stoned, and . . .

Oh yeah, speaking of which . . . so there’s this part later in the movie . . . which, chronologically, is actually much sooner, I think . . . where Cal is really, really super-duper stoned with a buddy of his (Jan-David Sauter). They’re stretched out on the couch, taking in some random, undisclosed horror flick on the TV – big screen, I’m sure, with an expensive streaming service – and they’re just yucking it up. One of the dudes says something like, “Nineties horror films, man. Always the same formula, but they get me every time.” Then the other dude says that it’s hard to emulate the classics.

And that’s it right there, why all of this ended up no more than mediocre to me.

See, I grew up with 80s horror movies. Oh, believe me, there’s plenty to laugh at there too, but – no matter how what-the-fuck they got – most of them were breaking some kinda new ground, if only by default. Okay, maybe not most . . . but about half. A solid one-third anyway. But, by the time the studios bumbled over every possible holiday as an excuse to slice up some teenagers – then lost half their audience – the horror flick took a nap. No fear, though, it started making a comeback in the 90s. It began with THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, and then Wes Craven woke up long enough to give us SCREAM (sure, hate on me for not showing pure love, but the dude made one amazing film every ten years, then coasted ’til his next masterpiece).

The studios were still trying to pass this new wave of horror films off as “thrillers”, though . . . the big H being an under-performing dirty word at the time.  So, they followed the formula (ie, SCREAM and SILENCE) and gave us a bunch of horrific thrillers with well-known sitcom stars. For me it made a lotta the 90s even more formulaic than the 80s, which is really saying something. For every masterful SCREAM, we got a bunch of I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMERs – or SCREAM 2, for that matter – and, for every passable THE FACULTY, we got DISTURBING BEHAVIOR and TEACHING MRS. TINGLE. Yeah, we got Katie Holmes.

And, basically, we got cookie-cutter horror.

So, I’m assuming that the filmmakers behind DEAD LIST are in their late twenties, possibly early thirties. They’ve undoubtedly got some 90s nostalgia going on, like my slightly-older ass has for the 80s. No problem with that, I can dig it. There’s some decent horror to be found in every decade since those Lumieres first fired up the Cinematographe . . . but I’m personally just not ready to rewind through my twenties. I’m kinda thinking, if I had some decent actors and a healthy enough chunk of change, that I might wanna break some new ground. Maybe fail epically, but at least throw something out there we haven’t already seen. You know, like a hundred times. Then again, it’s not my money and it’s not my time . . .

And DEAD LIST isn’t a bad movie.

There’s a lot to recommend it, especially if you just wanna let something roll while you make out on the couch. Some pretty good effects in the ‘Kush’ sequence . . . and the old lady who’s haunting Jason might stick around in your dreams if you let her. The dude playing Bob, Josh Eichenbaum, was pretty entertaining, and Cal was a decent enough protagonist. It’s all done in a mostly efficient manner, and not a total waste of time.

I just wish it was a little more fucked-up.

DEAD LIST is available 5/1/18 on VOD, DVD 7/3/18 on DVD, and SVOD 9/4/18