Review of Long Time Dead (2002) by Danielle S — 16 Jun 2008

At a party a group of bored London students decide to hold a seance around an ouija board. They conjure something up but then one of the group freaks out, breaking the connection. Immediately after members of the group start being killed by something that leaves burn marks on their body.

Lucy believes that it is a djinn, a demonic being born of flame. It was summoned by the seance and has been allowed to roam free in the world because the connection was broken and will do so until its kills everyone who was present at the seance.

She also believes that it is possessing one of the group. Meanwhile Liam makes the discovery that his father, locked away as a criminally insane murderer, conducted a similar seance that unleashed a djinn when he was a child.

This modest English-made horror film became a small international hit. It is really a variant on the modern 1990s teen horror film that began with Scream (1996). Although it is actually a much more welcome take on the modern teen horror film than its American counterparts.

It is refreshingly free of moralizing for one ? people take drugs but are not regarded as having giant targets painted on them as a result, the last survivor isn?t the chaste heroine. It takes place in ordinary rundown student flats and there is not single scene where anybody refers to how what is happening resembles another horror film.