Dead Still (2014)

Directed by Philip Adrian Booth [Other horror films: Death Tunnel (2005), ShadowBox (2005), DarkPlace (2007), Children of the Grave (2007), Ghouls Gone Wild (2008), The Possessed (2009), The Haunted Boy: The Secret Diary of the Exorcist (2010), Soul Catcher (2011), Children of the Grave 2 (2012), The Exorcist File (2014), The Attached (2023)]

Dead Still isn’t a movie I want to spend a lot of time on. I found it absolutely abysmal the first time I saw it, and time hasn’t been overly kind to it. It’s one of those movies in which it’s hard to put into words exactly why I despise it, but the dislike is indeed real, and based on how terrible this movie is, I imagine the feeling is mutual.

The basic plot – a camera used for death photography (taking pictures of dead bodies, apparently a thing back in the olden days) is discovered by a descendant, and things happen – could have been okay, but it wasn’t because the movie sucked.

To elaborate, I just didn’t get it – the souls of spirits are caught in the Negative World, and have been since they were originally photographed, but apparently mean no harm toward the person who trapped them there, one Wenton Davis (played by Ray Wise), but once a live kid (not the only live person, because a little girl who died is also alive apparently) gets there, things happen.

If someone is photographed by this old camera, they die a couple of days later. But that’s not all – even if someone has been nowhere near the camera, the ghost trapped in the camera can leave the camera to possess someone to self-mutilate themselves, and there’s a cult watching a house but the cult only has one member and that member has an ancestor who is dead but also alive and cameras and sacrifice and the worst ending I’ve seen in my life.

Dead Still is shit.

And even after I watched it the first time, I was curious as to why. I’ve not touched on the meta reasons it’s shit – I will, don’t worry – but this film was directed by Philip Adrian Booth. I didn’t know at the time I first watched Dead Still that Booth was the same director behind Death Tunnel, which was another amazingly bad film that I couldn’t believe was as atrocious as it was. After I found out that the same guy behind Death Tunnel was behind Dead Still, everything fell into place.

See, as terrible as the story is, the technique is worse. I’m not a behind-the-scenes guy. I can’t describe filming techniques or properly use filming terminology. What I can say is that many of the scenes here feel like they’re from a ‘scary’ music video – they quickly flash on the screen with no context, and the editing too is shit, also in a way I can’t describe. Actually, if you’re a director, or editor, or have some movie-making ambitions, watch this movie and tell me what went wrong – even if I never find it, it’s worth seeing how not to make a movie.

Ben Browder (Bad Kids Go to Hell, Hoax) isn’t a good lead. Ray Wise (Dead End, Jeepers Creepers 2, The Butterfly Room) was hammy, so at least he was having fun. Eric Ruff was terrible. Elle LaMont (Mercy Black, The Devil’s Gravestone) was sort of hot, but also not great. I felt quite bad for Gavin Casalegno, as he was only a kid, and he didn’t deserve this.

The performances don’t matter. No performance in the history of mankind could make a movie with this story and this editing worth watching. I’ll give Dead Still props for it’s gore, but I’ll take them all away for two reasons:

1. The finale was about 15 seconds long. It showed that, despite destroying the evil, that the evil wasn’t destroyed, and was still able to possess people.
2. Apparently, this was ‘based on a true story.’ Show me one piece of evidence that a ghost/spirit was trapped in a camera and was able to possess and kill people and I will give this movie a 10/10 and publically apologize for giving it the rating it deserves. Cameras do exist, but that’s as true as this movie gets.

I was going to give this points for a scene toward the end – not exactly a twist, or at least not a good twist, but an almost okay scene – but this movie just pisses me off. It gets nothing. It loses. GOOD DAY, SIR!

0/10