Customer Reviews

Long Time Dead

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

A group of college students at an all night party decide to play with a Ouija board. What starts out as fun turns into a nightmare when the board spells out the words "ALL DIE". As they finnished, they soon discover a series of disturbing murders that might be caused by an otherworldly force. The plot has an interesting twist which saves the film from becoming a piece of trash. But I didn't see it expecting it to be a piece of trash, I saw it because I want a movie to be fun. My prayers have been answered by this great movie. The direction is clevery stylish and wrtier/director Marcus Adams truly knows horror. He knows how to deliver scares and jolts and don't forget, he knows how to tell a good story. The actors did an extremely good job here. Unlike other Low Budget slasher movies. So overall, the horror fans should give this a watch. It's friday night cinema in your home and I got some hot liquid for your popcorn... and it's non-dairy.

Long Time Dead is a British slasher film that contains many staple horror clichés such as Ouija boards, witchcraft and Satanism but for some reason I never seem to tire of these types of horror movies, many seem to make for fascinatingly dark and morbid films.

The plot is pretty simple, involving a gang of twenty-somethings who go to a rave to party-hardy. While sitting on the couches in the chillout room, one of the guys dares the rest to give his Ouija board a spin, as he says it's the scariest experience he's ever had. While messing around with the Ouija board, the gang manage to summon the spirit of an evil Djinn, an Arabian fire demon whose spirit was last summoned in 1979 Morocco. You know what happens next-our young marauders get picked off one by one by one...

This film plays it straight and tries to be seriously scary and actually succeeds in parts. There's eerie music throughout, jittery camerawork and a score of creepy locales at dusk. The enemy is never seen, only felt, adding to the mystique and making this somewhat a horror-mystery hybrid. When I picked this up I was expecting a cheap-looking straight-to-vid slasher style but this movie actually looks quite slick, is decently budgeted and has somewhat competent actors. I'm guessing this might even have had a box office run in Britain.

Unfortunately the film has quite a few problems. I didn't like how the group happened to summon up an evil Djinn their very first time together on the Ouija board. I mean, none of them except for one was actually taking it seriously or believed in it but it worked right away? Come on...And the characters were quite an unlikeable lot, youngsters with cookie-cutter thin personalities who spend their entire time on screen partying, snorting drugs, drinking and just acting like dorks in general. There were way too many central characters involved, I actually felt like I needed to keep a scorecard to know what was going on.

Really, the movie is like a 3-phase wave. 1st half hour decent, 2nd half hour insufferable, 3rd half hour decent again. I do recommend this film as a one-shot viewing to the experienced horror movie viewer who can make due with highs and lows in a film. Despite its problems I still liked it. Guess I'll always be a sucker for those witchcraft cum Satanism cum voodoo type horror movies.

Long Time Dead (Marcus Adams, 2002)

I wondered for years when the British, following the demise of Hammer, were going to start turning out good bad horror films again. I had high hopes with the 2003 release of 28 Days Later..., but now I find out they started before that. A year before, at least. First-time director Marcus Adams came up with this trashy little gem the year before. It certainly pushed him into the big time; his second film, Octane, has such stars in it as Madeleine Stowe, Norman Reedus, and Jonathan Rhys-Myers. Someone sure must have liked it.

The premise is your standard horror fare: eight friends, during a rave, decide to try messing with a ouija board. They figure it will be a bit of harmless fun, but unbeknownst to all of them (including him), one of the friends, Liam (the James Marhsall-esque Alec Newman, recently seen in the TV miniseries version of Dune) has something of a history with a very nasty spirit. The spirit possesses one of the eight, and the murders begin.

It's deeply silly, and more of a mystery than a horror film, but the slick production values, some fine acting (including a turn by oft-seen Lukas Haas, best known as the kid in Witness), and the usual bevy of gorgeous babes make this one a definite rental for the horror fan who doesn't get his kicks exclusively from excessive violence. ***

I like this movie , great cast with a good story that weaves in and out and makes for a interesting demons from beyond kind of movie. This is a very tame as far as blood, gore and nakedness but the story does not need it.
I hate to say it folks the Brits have really been stepping up to the plate with the horror movie genre and I hope they keep them coming.
I bought this used off Amazon for around $3.00 and am very happy I did,

This movie focuses on a group of friends that, while playing with a homemade Ouija board, release an evil djinn. The Ouija board first reveals to the friends that they all will die. And then they start getting killed off one by one.

There are many aspects of this horror flick that work well enough to make it a fun scary movie. The director does a good job of using the proper elements of suspense so that the movie offers several spine tingling moments. Too many modern day horror movies use just blood and gore in attempts to scare the viewer; this movie goes beyond that. The director uses interesting camera angles, mood setting lighting techniques, and an eerie sound track all to keep the feeling of suspense alive throughout the movie.

The reason this movie only gets three stars is because the acting is slightly below par and oftentimes the script just does not make any sense. The characters' motivations and actions are just not believable. For instance, characters that are afraid of something dark coming after them keep going into dark rooms and not turning on any lights. The characters keep saying they need to stay together to remain safe, but keep splitting up (and then going into dark rooms and not turning on any lights). Moreover, much of the movie is quite predictable -- the ending in particular.

That being said, if you want a light-fare horror movie that does actually have some workable suspense, this movie is worth your time. You won't get Hitchcock, but you will get something that utilizes suspenseful film making beyond that of the usual Freddy or Jason fare.

After a rather listless start, this surprisingly effective little shocker becomes a very competent and suspenseful movie. Although we have been swamped with the Djinn in the four WISHMASTER movies, the Djinn in this one is a little different than the wishmaster's. A group of burned out college kids mistakenly summon the Arabic fire demon while messing around with a customized ouija board. The Djinn possesses one of the gang and starts bumping everybody off; if he can kill them all, he will be free. Of course, the prime suspect is the son of a serial killer who just happened to be at a ouija gathering in 1979 Morocco.
The movie has some tense moments, and a pretty good cast. Alec Newman is good as Liam, as is Lukas Haas (Witness) as the video freak. Joe Absolom (Extreme Ops) does a nice job as the nerdy Rob. Noted British character actor Tom Bell also steps in as the strange landlord, Becker.
All in all, I found the identity of the Djinn quite surprising, and the movie delivers its jolts with a surprise ending, too.

I watched this DVD with a bit of skepticism, I'll admit, as I didn't know what to expect from a film about oujia boards, and spirits. Well, let me say that I was pleasantly suprised! The beginning of the film brought kind of an introduction of the new situation, which gave me an idea of what I would be dealing with. The next scene was a break, and provided some comic relief...though I wondered how that really went along with the story, as it seemed kind of tacked on....but, that was a litle point that can be largely ignored. After that, the action starts to heat fast, with people dropping like flis....yes...like flies, and there is always a guessing game as to what is causing this! I also liked the kind of barrier that is thrown in our path as to guessing the truth of what is actually going on. I thought that the characters were really good, especially Joe Absolom, who played rob. I felt that he was very convincing,. The only thinbg that I would have liked to see more of was where the relationships between the characters were going. I felt like at the end of the movie that there were a lot of unanswered questions. All in all, I think that this was an excellent film, though I would only reccomend it to teens or those in their twenties, because it probable wouldn't be appreciated by older people.

Blak Viper

This movie was a major letdown. I only bought it because I wanted to see a recent Lukas Haas film. After viewing, I must say that I really don't understand why he would even waste his talents on such trash. Not.good.at.all. (and I want my 28 bucks back...)

I was searching through the older release shelf looking for a fun way to spend $3.00 since the new releases are $3.79 and came across this worthy film. I didn't know it was british luckilly because if I had I would've got something else because this was a really scary flick.

This one has the Brits trying their hand at horror, and although at first glance it may seem like a Scream/Urban Legend Clone, "Long Time Dead" is a pretty effective outing from first time director Marcus Adams.

Okay, so the story is hackneyed -- a bunch of friends get too drunk and drugged out during a night out and decide to mess around with a ouija board, and in the process set free a djinn or Arabic fire demon -- but Adams throws in a few twists and turns that keep this movie pretty interesting.

One nice twist is that one of the kids has a link to the djinn that is connected to the gruesome death of his mother in Morocco when he was a kid. Other twists keep popping up throughout the flick to sustain viewer interest.

The best twist though is the one in the ending....

This DVD features a gorgeous transfer, almost completely free of edge enhancement and even its darly lit night scenes look fabulous. The soundtrack is terrific too, making great use of the surround speakers. Though listed only as 5.1 Dolby surround, this decodes very effectively even on Dolby Surround EX if you have a 6.1 set-up.