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
• Rating: 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 (43 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0011B9W6U
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #54,153 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Review

An indie-horror classic of the future! --Salon.com

Product Description

A furiously original meld of madness and pathos, The Living and the Dead is family dysfunction at its most shocking and grotesque. With bankruptcy looming, desperate Donald Brocklebank (Roger Lloyd Pack, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) must leave his bedridden wife alone with their son James - a schizophrenic man-child. In a horrific fit of dementia James abandons his medication, locks the doors, and plays nurse. As his ability to distinguish morbid fantasy from reality decays, he plunges into a mental labyrinth so violent and deranged none of them may survive it.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 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 500 REVIEWER)

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.

2 of 2 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 (REAL NAME)

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:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Film of Minimilist Dialogue, April 24, 2008

By	John L. Hoh Jr. "Author and Theologian" (Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This was, to say the least, a very different and interesting movie. With minimialist dialogue and fast-action sequences, the movie does become hard to follow. I guess the sprawling mansion makes the story somewhat interesting as James moves his mother in a wheelchair throughout the mansion.

As I said the dialogue is minimalist. There just wasn't much there. Hard to follow a movie or empathize with characters if we only see their actions and get no glimpse into what is going on inside them.

Many scenes were of "fast-forward" action sequences. This occured when it seems James was moving his mother in a wheelchair throughout out large mansion.

The story appears to be one where James' mother is bedridden and his father is trying to sell the expansive mansion. Father needs to leave to take care of business (a lengthy trip). A nurse was supposed to watch mother and son (son was not A-OK either). But the son, James, locks the nurse out and sets out to prove he can take care of his mother.

And thus the movie, sans much dialogue, seeks to show James attempt this juggling act.

This is not a movie to watch when tired.