Long Time Dead (2002) Movie Review
Written By: TJ
Edited By: Grave Reviews Staff
Film Information
Director: Marcus Adams
Producers: James Gay-Reese
Writers: Marcus Adams, Daniel Bronzite, James Gay-Reese
Date Released: January 18, 2002
Cast:
Alec Newman as Liam
Joe Absolom as Rob
Lara Belmont as Stella
Lukas Haas as Webster
Marsha Thomason as Lucy
James Hillier as Spencer
Tom Bell as Becker
Michael Feast as Paul Brennan
Rating: 1.5/5 Graves
***May contain some spoilers***
Synopsis
While on a night of clubbing, a group of friends decides to do something else for fun: play Ouija Board in the middle of the night. Led by Lucy (Marsha Thomason), the group tries to summon a spirit from the other side, although some of them are still skeptical about it. But everything turns serious when Liam (Alec Newman), screams and break the glass, then run out of the room. The game was over and his girlfriend comforted him on the rooftop. When his girlfriend goes back to the area where they played, she is suddenly terrorized by an unseen force and immediately killed. After the first death, Lucy seeks for an answer on how to stop the evil spirit they have called upon; and that is to find out who is possessed by the demon among her friends and banish him, or else everyone dies.
Gore Factor
Long Time Dead (2002) has a few scares combined with a backstory involving 70s Satanists resulting in an undeniably silly but mildly entertaining film. There is a lot of blood, I can assure you that, but there isn’t much gore aside from bodies being burned and slit. The first gory scene will be shown on the second quarter of the movie, making it dragging and boring. There isn’t much to commend in the prosthetics and makeup department because they give us the generic products of gore that won’t even make the viewers wince. Plus, the lack of physical demon can be pretty disappointing. The most gory and intense scene that this film can offer is when one of the characters dropped dead in front of his friend under the bed, neck oozing with blood and carnage. The movie compares lesser to other horror films in the market, but if you could go for some tension and grittiness for an hour and a half, then you could might as well do with Long Time Dead.
The Grave Review
Coming off from British production, Long Time Dead may seem stale tackling subjects of cult, Ouija Board, and demon worship. The story gives us a common plot featuring swinging teenagers who decide to play Ouija Board one night and accidentally summoned an otherworldly spirit that kills them one by one. Director Marcus Adams surely has a lot more to learn, but he somehow manages to ace a few aspects.
The sound effects and musical background is a lifesaver for Long Time Dead as it helps build tension all throughout Long Time Dead (2003). The gnarly techno music in the house encourages the viewers to be engaged on some level. Moreover, the slick editing makes the visual sharp adding to the passable cinematography. Although a little too dim, it is forgivable by just adjusting your screen’s brightness.
Director Marcus Adams is accompanied by two more writers who created the script, throwing our way all kinds of teen characters, but didn’t manage to introduce all of them at a satisfactory depth. Hence, audience can’t actually root for any emotion that can be felt towards the characters. The story is plausible, and it keeps us guessing who could be really possessed and keeps us on our toes. However, while setting the clock back to pre-irony age, Long Time Dead trades in standard stalk and clichés, letting the script write itself which isn’t really a good idea.
The cast’s performances are enjoyable, and pretty interesting too with the cipher-quality characters. They’ve delivered what’s due, but still somehow gets drowned by the fact that the story lack originality, therefore blinding the viewers with indifference. But hey, Alec Newman and Lukas Haas did quite an outstanding job by showing us intense emotions, you should see it for yourself.
In conclusion, the negative criticisms has outnumbered the good ones, making the film falls on the category of bad horror flicks. This could’ve been done better if the production throws some awestrucking twists and more mind-boggling ideas, but sadly they didn’t. In a few years time, you might be nostalgic about this, but for the time being that good movies are reigning our generation, avoid.
For the foregoing reasons, Grave Reviews gives Long Time Dead (2002) one and a half graves out of five graves.
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