Product Details

• Actors: Richard Syms, Leo Bill, Sarah Ball, Kate Fahy, Neil Conrich
• Directors: Simon Rumley
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: TLA
• DVD Release Date: March 25, 2008
• Run Time: 83 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0011B9W6U
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #63,287 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

LIVING AND THE DEAD - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Difficult and deranged, a descent into madness, March 21, 2008

By 

Tim Brough "author and music buff" (Springfield, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Living and the Dead (DVD)

(What's this?)

This disturbing psychodrama is a far cry from most horror films. Centered on the death of the mother of the family, the plot revolves around Donald Brocklebank, a father who is seeing his manor fall into poverty, his psychotic son and his terminally ill wife. James, the son, is raging with visions that he can take care of his ailing mother, which takes up the movie's disturbing first third. When Daddy heads to London to find more funds to take care of his wife (or answer to some hinted upon controversy published in the local newspaper - you're never quite sure), James locks out the family nurse so he can be the caretaking "man of the house." Thus is his mother sent into a claustrophobic filmed hell. The scenes where James cares for/brutalizes her are maddeningly disturbing.

Then the Police and rescue arrive. Or do they? James loads himself with drugs and falls into deeper, murderous madness. Or does he? Daddy Donald is protective of his son - or is he repulsed? Yes, the movie really is that disjointed, presented in the schizophrenia that James (Leo Bill) must have running through his own mind. But then again, as the film's final act posits, maybe James isn't the one descended into madness.

It's easy to see how "The Living and The Dead" would be a hit with film fest types, as it has just the barest hint of narrative from which all sorts of angst and art dangle. Director/Writer Simon Lumley has commented that his movie is a direct reaction to losing his own mother to Cancer, and the infuriating helplessness he felt as the disease progressed. It is a blunt emotional force, confusing and frightening, that he brings to "The Living and The Dead," and not an altogether watchable one. This is not a movie that you'll feel good about after you watch it, and at times it made me feel like I was seeing a close cousin to Roman Polanski's hallucinatory nightmare, Repulsion. How a movie like that affects you will directly influence what you get from this one.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oh My..., March 12, 2008

By 

R. Lanthier (Vienna, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Living and the Dead (DVD)

(What's this?)

I thought this was a very very difficult movie to watch. Disturbing insights into a disturbed mind crossed with family drama. Production is minimal (nice!). When it was over, I felt like I had been through a physical workout - I think it was more of a mental workout really - and I wanted to watch again. This one really get's you thinking and tried to get you into the head of a schizophrenic man (I believe that would be the main character's diagnosis), and does so convincingly. If you are interested in the potential impact of serious mental illness on families, five the Living and the Dead a watch.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Living and the Dead, March 16, 2008

By 

cortezhill - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Living and the Dead (DVD)

(What's this?)

Besides the excellent performance by Richard Lloyd Pack as the father, and the fine performances by Kate Fahey as the mother and Sarah Ball as the nurse, there is not much to recommend in this film. The performance by Leo Bill as the son was goofey. Whether this performance was created by the actor or a result of the director's vision, the character was played as a spastic with none of the menace or desperation you would expect from a disillusioned, tortured soul so frustrated by his physical and mental limitations that he resorts to murder.

The story is a fairly simple tale of the disintegration of a family due to financial problems, physical illness, and a son with severe mental problems. Unfortunately it wasn't told very well. I went to the director's website and read his synopsis of the film. Many of the minor details of the story that might have made the film more interesting, such as the institutionalizing of the son or the sale of the house, weren't in the film. Instead what is told is the story in it's barest most straightforward form. Without these additional elements, this is a 10 minute story stretched to 80 minutes.

It is always nice to see a filmmaker who doesn't rely on the extreme closeups that make up the bulk of Hollywood films, but the images presented here weren't that interesting to watch. Over half the film consists of one character or another slowly walking across a room, down a hallway or up a stairway. Many of these same shots were used more than once. About 1/2 way through the film a shot looking down from the top of a stairway as someone walked through a doorway was nicely composed. Other than that nothing else was very impressive. The shot, used 3 times, of the view from the back of a cabinet as the son reached in to get his medication is nothing new. As the film progressed the people walking through the rooms, down the hallways and along the stairs were speeded-up with certain time lapse techniques, not really adding any heightened tension to the movie. As the film reached its end there were several exterior time lapse shots of night turning to day and visitors arriving and leaving. The beginning of the movie was plodding with nothing happening. The end of the movie was rushed, thankfully ending none too soon.

All films have the problem to one degree or another of what to do during editing when the shot you want just isn't there. Large budget pictures have more resources to deal with this problem. I think the shot just wasn't there most of the time for this low budget film.