Review of Dread (2009) by Don S — 12 Feb 2017

Dread is a horror film based on a story written by Clive Barker, which I have not read yet, and it follows three people, two of them film students, trying to make a film that shows the true nature of fear, what people fear the most.

They do this by interviewing a lot of people, asking them questions about their fears, deaths in the family and whatnot. Dread is a surprisingly effective horror movie! I didn't expect it to be as disturbing as it was.

The characters are, also surprisingly, well developed. None of the characters seemed cliche and they were very well portrayed by the actors. Shaun Evans and his character particularly stand out. His character, Quaid, is a very intriguing and unpredictable character, so there's always a sense of danger whenever he's around because you never know what he might do.

Shaun Evans' acting was terrific and at moments he really got under my skin. Another great performance was that of Jackson Rathbone. He plays Stephen, a film student who meets Quaid and Quaid convinces to help him make this film.

The visual look of the movie feels very gritty and the darkness of the sets really adds to the atmosphere. There's also a decent amount of gore in this film. Some of it was CGI, of course, but besides that one scene where it was very noticeable, I didn't have any problems with it.

The ending, in particular, is very shocking. I actually had to look away for a few moments because what was happening was so disgusting that I was afraid I might feel sick. You'll know exactly which scene it is if you decide to watch the movie.

The direction is really well done, especially the axe murder scene at the beginning. I read that they've done a lot of changes to the original story, but if a movie makes changes and still turns out to be good, I've no problem with it.

Not everything that is written can be turned into a good, comprehensible, film. All in all, besides a few misplaced CGI gore scenes and an ending that fell a bit flat, this is a great, suspenseful and scary movie that I would recommend seeing.