The Living and the Dead
Directed by Simon Romley
Danger After Dark

The Living and The Dead is a brooding and offbeat horror film that is refreshingly original. With an artistic yet disturbing take on the psychological horror genre, the pace of the film is methodical and the overall feel of the film is quite realistic. This is a dark and gritty film that proves their is still original films to be found within the horror genre.

What is surprising about how effective this film is, is the fact that we really know very little about the characters. The husband is facing financial problems and has to leave his schizophrenic son and beddridden wife behind while he possibly takes care of something business related. We never find out why the family is facing bankruptcy or even why the wife is bed ridden. The movie starts with a regular day with the family and escalates from there. The film has a very realistic feel to it and the increasing madness of the son is handled artistically yet shockingly brutal at times.

A nurse is meant to stay with the wife, but the son wants to take care of her instead. After stopping taking his medicine, his dementia becomes more severe and inadvertently he hurts his mother while trying to help her. When the nurse does finally arrive, the son locks the doors and ignores the knocking until the nurse leaves. When she returns later with the police, the story really picks up steam. The rest of the film is filled with many twists and the third act is definitely not to be missed.

Despite the fact that the entire film takes place in an old and slightly rundown mansion, the film is still very interesting visually. Unique camera angles and an almost gothic feel to the lighting makes the mansion feel very empty and almost haunting. In a way the house almost becomes an additional character and each room has unique camera angles that are repeated throughout the film.

The hallucination scenes are handled quite well with one of the longer scenes being quite startling and very disturbing. The initial bouts of dementia are shown by speeding up the movements of the son as he moves about the house. It makes the feeling of the character losing control quite evident. There is a bit of blood, but this isn't what you would consider an exploitive horror film. This doesn't rely on cheap scares and bloody deaths to be chilling. This is effective and yet somewhat subtle at the same time. It manages to be artistic yet still accessible enough for the average movie goer.

The Living and the Dead is a shocking and original horror film that stays away from cliches and creates the tension with the performance of the characters alone. If you enjoy your horror atmospheric yet chilling, this is a film I can't recommend highly enough.

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