Long Time Dead
1/2
Cinema Releases - January 18, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. 94
minutes. Directed by Marcus Adams. Written by Eitan Arrusi, Chris Baker,
Daniel Bronzite, Andy Day; from a story by Marcus Adams, Daniel Bronzite,
James Gay-Rees. Starring Joe Absolom, Tom Bell, Lara Belmont, Melanie Gutteridge,
James Hillier, Alec Newman, Mel Raido, Marsha Thomason.
As the credits rolled at the end of "Long
Time Dead", I approached the usher and said that if she had to sit
through it again, she should ask for a raise. After "Wishmaster" I thought
I had seen the worst possible movie about the legendary fire demon Djinn,
but boy oh boy, I was wrong.
The movie opens in Morocco in 1979, where sweaty
people in rags are performing some kind of ritual. I couldn't tell what the
hell was going on, but the buzzing noises and Ouija board were not good signs.
Cut to present day London, where we meet a group of undergraduates and are
treated to a perfunctory Britflick set-up of Hip Young People -- there's
the obligatory club scene, for example, and a conversation about "what gives
you the biggest buzz."
We're supposed to be seeing the student hangouts
of London, but the cinematography features such a pall that everything looks
ten times grimier and dingier than it should. This is not university life;
it's a cross between Victorian jail and nuclear winter. While the director
of photography makes sure we can hardly see anything, the director, Marcus
Adams, frames things so incompetently that half the time we can't tell locations
apart.
The story takes off with our student friends deciding
to play with a Ouija board. Something goes wrong, and they feel a strange
presence, which starts killing them off by burning them, blowing them up
and making them jump from rooftops.
Good riddance. The cast is made up of young phoneys
who ring of local theatre; they're obnoxious, poxy and amateurish. Among
the unknowns, for some ungodly reason, is Lucas Haas, who was wonderful as
a child actor but bizarre here, with the whiny voice of a Yank doofus and
creepy stare and fuzzy stubble that make him look like a 6-foot ferret. Lara
Belmont, so heartbreaking in "The War Zone", is also featured, but given
nothing to do, which does at least mean that she doesn't have to shoulder
any blame.
The pedestrian dialogue suits the lousy cast.
This movie actually contains the line "If only I'd gone with her!", as well
as the following exchange:
"What happened?"
"Nothing."
"Come on, you can tell me."
"Nothing happened, alright!!"
Dialogue likes this makes me snore loud enough
to wake myself up. At one point one of the girls shouts "This isn't funny!",
and I was tempted to shout "It's not scary, either!" The movie is basically
a collection of those scenes where young people wander in the dark trying
to detect the source of creepy noises.
It's also very solemn, making it boring and
infuriating. What's the point of a film like this? Did those responsible
really think that we'd be scared by a lot of darkness, accompanied by string
music and the occasional gory death? "Long Time Dead" is the same scene over
and over -- a clichéd scene at that. If people have to make movies
using tired techniques, can't they at least make those movies stylish and
lightweight, instead of pretending that they're deadly serious
art?
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
2002 Reviews
(alphabetical)
2002 Reviews (by star
rating)
Archive of all cinema reviews
(alphabetical)
Review Archive
Index
UK
Critic main page
|
![[Image]](http://www.ukcritic.com/posbanr2.gif)
