Instant Favorite.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The struggling British film industry commits another blunder with this highly predictable horror film, produced with part funding from the French who now probably regret their decision. I can't say that this film will do much for cultural relations as it is really a major disappointment from the beginning. I had been meaning to catch this at the cinema and never did, now I know why. The lame and clichéd antics never for one single second add up to anything other than overwhelming boredom and the overall result is that you are left feeling that you've seen it all before, and if you're anything of a horror fan like me then you will have. First off the film attempts to appeal to the teen audience with a group of foul-mouthed youngsters having sex, taking drugs and doing all of the other things that teenagers supposedly do. Sadly the cast is a largely uninteresting bunch with only one or two half decent actors in there. The rest just woodenly say their lines without any conviction and make no impact at all.Most of the faces are unfamiliar with only a couple of exceptions to hook in something of an audience. First we have Joe Absolom, a guy who had a role on popular British soap EASTENDERS a few years back; but I don't remember his acting being this bad back then! Absolom is given a fairly dramatic character to contend with but his efforts are hardly noteworthy. Now, remember how old British B-films back in the '60s and '70s used to have imported American stars to appeal to the American audience? They've done the same thing here with the appearance of former child star Lukas Haas (WITNESS), now a gangly twentysomething who enjoys playing with a video camera (for no other reason than to recall THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT). Although Haas gives only an adequate performance he still turns out to be the best actor in the film.The stupid plot concerns the oh-so-predictable antics surrounding a ouija board séance that gets out of hand. An unseen djinn is summoned and proceeds to wreak havoc by…killing off the teenagers one by one. A good opportunity for some imaginative deaths and gore, you might think? Sadly not. The deaths are skimmed over, major characters disappear only to later be found in elevator shafts, etc. The idea of an ancient djinn as a monster has already been done in the superior WISHMASTER and besides which the budget doesn't stretch to any special effects (other than some cheap snake eye morphing stuff), so instead one of the teens gets possessed and we're left trying to figure out which one.Although this film is shot well, the direction is poor (first-timer Marcus Adams really needs to try harder and stop messing around) and the editing is hopeless, just random scenes strung together in a sequence with no idea of time frame or anything. My favourite bit is a suspenseful moment where Lukas Haas is trapped in a dark house with the monster, but it's quickly and predictably over and the film once again goes downhill from there. The finale is yet another of those tired "twist ending" clichés we all know and hate. Only sadists need apply for this uninteresting talkathon.

Long Time Dead opens to a caption that informs us that we're in 'Morocco 1979' where a group of people are holding a séance which gets out of hand when a fire demon called a Djinn appears & supposedly kills everyone... Long Time Dead then cuts to present day London where four house-mates, Rob (Joe Absolom), Liam (Alex Newman), Webster (Lukas Haas) & Stella (Lara Belmont) are planning to go out for the night. They hook up with their soon to be new house-mate the drug dealing Joe (Mel Raido) & three friends, Lucy (Marsha Thomason), Spencer (James Hillier) & Liam's girlfriend Annie (Melanie Gutteridge). While sitting around at a club they begin to have a discussion on what the biggest buzz in life is, from this rather innocent sounding topic the subject of séance's is brought up & for some reason they all decide to hold one. They find a suitable venue which appears to be in attic space above the club & begin, unfortunately they release the fire demon Djinn which spells the words 'ALL DIE' out on the Ouija board which freaks them all out, as it would I suppose. Shortly after Annie dies in an accident & her body has burns on it, the remaining member's of the group feel something is wrong & do some research which leads to some unexpected answers & the discovery that maybe not everyone is as they appear or who they claim. As more of the friends continue to die in accidents a way must be found to send the evil Djinn back before it completes it's mission to kill all those who summoned it...Directed Adam Marcus I thought that this English & French co-production was a somewhat modest & undemanding way to pass 90 odd minutes. The script by Eitan Arrusi, Chris Baker, Daniel Bronzite & Andy Day really isn't anything special & I can't quite believe it took four writers to come up with this. Generally speaking Long Time Dead is rather slow & uneventful & the characters are so bland & similar with most of them looking & sounding exactly the same & the only one's I could really distinguish between are Lucy because she's black & Joe because of his hair! Everyone else barely registered with me & that made it very hard to care about anyone or anything, oh & they're an unlikeable bunch of teenage stereotypes as well which didn't help the film. The script also features various lapses of logic, at the end I just couldn't stop thinking that it was a bit of a coincidence that a bunch of kids would just happen to hold a séance & summon the exact same demon that their landlord & one of their Father's did years earlier, a fact which they only discover later on in the film. There is another scene in particular I keep thinking about that sums Long Time Dead & it's silly script up, when two people break into a police guarded house & turn the lights on only for the police officer on guard to be conveniently looking in the opposite direction & only looking back at the house literally seconds after the lights have been turned off. I also hated the scare tactic's that director Marcus employed, I mean people hearing noises only to have one of their 'friends' grab their shoulder & apologise for scaring them. What do these people think will happen exactly? Can't they just call out & say who it is that's creeping around in the shadows? Long Time Dead uses this clichéd & lazy technique on a number of increasingly annoying occasions. There are also plenty of cheap demon point-of-view shots which presumably help save money by not having to show the demon itself. On the positive side it tells it's story well enough I suppose & while it's not exceptional Long Time Dead is a well made film generally speaking. I also liked the ending where the Djinn appears to win, it's nice not to have a happy sugar coated ending for a change. Long Time Dead is one of those horror films that has nothing really wrong with it & entertains to a certain extent but suffers by being just so average a few script problems that should have been ironed out especially since four people worked on the thing. The gore quotient is sadly lacking with nothing more graphic than a few splashes of blood & someone being burnt. As for the Djinn itself the best the filmmakers could come up with are some CGI demon eyes on an ordinary actor. There's no sex or nudity either but there is some swearing & drug usage which the film treats lightly & doesn't say is right but neither does it say it is wrong just that it's a normal teenage thing to do. Overall I thought Long Time Dead was a slightly below average horror that didn't do much for me but at the same time I have seen much worse & at least it kept me watching until the end. Don't spend any sort of money on it but if you can catch it on TV for free & there's nothing else on then it's probably just about worth an hour & a half of your time, but only just.

There was a point - as the film was starting - that I felt that maybe I had had low and unjustified expectations of this film over the last couple of years: forget the bad reviews and box-office sales at the time of its release, and instead concentrate on the actual film itself. After pressing play on the VHS, this rather confused and quite frankly stupid reason of thought was quickly diminished after the first ten minutes or so had passed by.I won't go into the story much (it does exactly what it says on the tin, except it doesn't scare or entertain) as there isn't that much of a story, and what there is of it feels like a contrived mess that looks like it was thought up by an arrogant 15 year-old who thinks they're a genius (but they're NOT). Most of the film seems to consist of each character walking about in the dark for a bit, and then getting killed. No real scares to speak of, although the crap-looking student nightclub was a bit of a fright I can tell you.

I was dubious about this picture when I first heard about it, but then after seeing it for myself, I was greatly impressed.POSSIBLE SPOILERS!The story is very good and the suspense is rarely lifted off as a group of London college students are hunted one by one by an evil force that was unleashed during a ouija board session.I didn't recognise former Eastender Joe Absalom at first, but he gives an excellent performance here, as do Alec Newman (Frank Herbert's DUNE) and Lukas Haas of WITNESS. I thought the plot was at times similar to John Carpenter's THE THING, in that you know that the Djinn inhabits the body of one of the group, but you don't know who.The twist ending of the piece was great as well. I strongly recommend LTD to horror fans. 8/10.